When the Looking Glass Shatters - Part 2
by E1701
Summary: The consequences of a war between omnipotents reach far beyond the limits of any one universe. Someone needs to make sure that history takes its proper course - all of them.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Not surprisingly in a fanfic, I don't own any of these characters. Star Trek still belongs to Paramount, and Babylon 5 belongs to JMS, along with all of their associated stuff.

When the Looking Glass Shatters

Part II - Futureshock

Chapter 1

"Alright Doctor, we're here, where's the circus?" Sheridan tried not to appear as impatient as he felt, but he didn't think he was succeeding. _Wait, _he thought sourly, _why am I trying not to look impatient? I damn well am!_ True to Picard's word, there had been a meeting that morning, but the outcome was less than he could have hoped for. Two hours of deliberation had yielded no new answers for their current dilemma, punctuated by exhortations from Junior to make their way to Earth. Well, he had to admit to himself, it had indeed yielded answers... just none he liked. Lieutenant Commander Data had announced that there was no sign of life at all in this version of the Epsilon Eridani system, which had hit Babylon 5's command staff harder than any of them would admit. Until they'd seen for themselves that the system was barren, it had been easy to dismiss the very notion of being in another universe.

Chief Engineer LaForge, Lennier, and Data had pooled their abilities, and not been able to come up with any way of returning to their respective realities. Stephen Franklin was the only member of the command staff left behind, and he hadn't been himself lately, sometimes spending more than twenty-four hours at a stretch buried in Medlab. That problem aside, Franklin was the chief medical officer, not a command officer. As a result, Sheridan was desperately worried about the situation back on his station, but lacking any other alternatives, had finally agreed with Picard to proceed directly for Earth.

The Enterprise was towing the White Star through warp, both ships grappled together with their respective tractor beams, and they'd now been in transit for several hours. That brought Sheridan back to his current frustration.

Across from him, standing beside the large holodeck doors, Julian Bashir grinned hugely, giving no outward sign that he'd even noticed Sheridan's dour mood. "Trust me, you'll love this." He held up one of the commonplace Starfleet data padds, and turned away from the people gathered around him, to face the large holodeck doors.

Ezri Dax stood on tiptoe, which still put her several inches below the doctor's own height, and tried to peek over his shoulder. "What is it, Julian?" she asked plaintively, trying and failing to read the text on the tiny screen.

"Hang on," he said, not looking up while his fingers danced across the small controls. "Let's just say that Quark isn't going to be too pleased with me when we get back to Deep Space Nine."

The reference meant nothing to Sheridan, and beside him, Delenn's furrowed brow told him that she hadn't understood either, and what's more, she was just as impatient as he was, though trained diplomatic savvy had eliminated nearly all of the outward signs of that. Shooting a glance over his shoulder, he looked for Ivanova's expected reaction with grim amusement. If even Delenn was feeling the strain, Ivanova would be just short of frothing at the lips.

To his disgruntled surprise, she returned his gaze coolly from over the top of a steaming coffee mug. It was probably her fourth cup today. He nearly chuckled, recalling her reaction that morning when she'd figured out how to make the computer produce a cup of honest-to-God coffee, without having to sneak some plants into hydroponics, and waiting weeks for just enough beans for a few pots. After the meeting, Data had tried to explain the replication process to her, not entirely successfully.

"Commander," he had said, after she'd pointed out the fortune of the Enterprise crew in having plenty of real coffee aboard, "our replicators are capable of producing a large menu of items from a number of worlds. Since we do not need to carry the items themselves, the actual form the food takes is largely a factor of the accuracy of the replication program."

"Wait a minute," she'd replied looking down into her cup, "so you don't actually carry any coffee aboard? Then what is this?"

"Coffee," Data had answered unhelpfully. "The replicator rearranges the correct mass of matter into a chemical duplicate of the coffee and the cup it is held within."

She'd set the cup down hard. "So it's not real?"

He'd frowned at that. "In every sense of the word, it is entirely real."

"But it doesn't come from a bean."

"No."

"Then it's not real." She'd sighed happily, and taken another sip. "But I don't care, because it tastes real."

Data's reaction had been priceless. He'd looked like someone who'd bitten into a lemon coated with syrup while being informed that Cleveland, Ohio, was the geographical center of the universe. Ivanova had wandered off while Data's face had tried to decide what the proper expression to assume was.

So Ivanova was now mellowly sipping yet another cup, and was clearly enjoying it enough that any new surprises were not worth a full scale tantrum, even though it was now nearly a full day since they'd escaped the Shadow attack in Sector 14, and there seemed to be no progress in getting back to where they belonged.

Marcus hovered nearby, considering the doors warily, lest another holographic monster come charging through. He was also holding a cup of coffee in one hand, while the other tapped out a tuneless beat on his thigh, never straying far from where his fighting pike hung. Sheridan had no doubt that if there was another holo-monster involved in Bashir's plans, Marcus would be more than ready for it.

His thoughts were jarred back to the immediate present by the computer's atonal whistle, announcing the readiness of whatever Bashir was planning.

The doctor grinned cheerfully, and turned back to them. "I thought after all we've been through, we all deserved a night on the town."

Punctuating his words, the heavy holodeck doors slid apart with a mechnical vibration.

"Julian, you didn't..." Ezri said warningly. Then she breathed, "You did," with such a tone of dismay, that Marcus chuckled in response. 

Bashir strolled in, leading the way into a warmly lit room, which Sheridan quickly realized was a nightclub of a type that had gone out of style centuries ago. The place was empty, as far as he could see, save for a bartender behind a long counter of polished teak and worn brass. A stage was set into one wall in a prominent position easily visible from any of the small tables arranged in front of it.

Gesturing for everyone to clear the doorway and enter the room, Bashir crooked his arm around Ezri's, and wandered towards the stage, just as a small door along the same wall swung open. It seemed anachronistic aboard a starship, a wooden door with a hinge, although in their present surroundings, the smooth holodeck archway felt even more out of place. Striding confidently into the room, a thin, silver-haired man in a tuxedo stopped short upon seeing the small uniformed crowd in front of him. A beaming smile creased his sharp features as he called out, "Hey, palie-boy!"

Bashir grinned and waved. "Hello Vic." Turning back to the others, he said, "This is Vic Fontaine. He runs this place."

Vic came around the nearest table, sparing everyone in the group a friendly look as he shook Bashir's hand. "So, they finally finished the holosuite maintenance?"

Looking chagrined, Bashir shook his head, avoiding Ezri's glare. "Not exactly."

Peering past the doctor, Vic examined the holodeck doors and what he could see of the corridor beyond, then whistled. "Not in Kansas anymore, am I?"

"Welcome to the starship Enterprise," Bashir said expansively.

Vic whistled again, more appreciatively this time. He crossed to the arch, and leaned forward as if to look around the corner, and down the length of the corridor. His head abruptly vanished.

Sheridan, who had been trying to figure out some of Fontaine's and Bashir's odder comments, felt his jaw drop, and behind him, heard Ivanova squeak, and her thankfully emptied mug drop to the carpeted floor.

Almost before he was sure he had seen what he had just seen, Vic leaned back, a wry smile on his suddenly existant face. "Whoops, sometimes forget myself. So," he continued, gesturing to the small mob gathered nearby, "who are our guests? Those sure don't look like Starfleet uniforms, and they don't have bumpy foreheads... or spots," he added, tilting his head.

Deciding to assert himself before he completely lost control of the situation, Sheridan stuck out a hand. "Captain John Sheridan." He pointed to each of the others in turn, "My first officer, Commander Susan Ivanova, Marcus Cole, and Ambassador Delenn."

"Hey, any friends of Julian's and Ezri's, are friends of mine," Vic said cheerfully. Then he backpeddled. "Ambassador, did you say? We don't get too many dignitaries at a place like this. Pleased to make your aquaintence." Donning his most charming air, he bowed deeply, and raised Delenn's hand to his lips. Having seen many strange greetings from different races during her tenure on Babylon 5, she took it in stride, and returned the bow gracefully, allowing a smile to show in her eyes.

"It is my pleasure as well, Mr. Fontaine," she said. His encounter with the door, and its results, had startled her more deeply than she cared to admit, even to herself. When he'd first come into the room, she'd believed him to be another member of the starship's crew, perhaps in suitable costume. Now that she know he was a holodeck creation, she did not know quite how to proceed. More disturbingly, however, was that he seemed to know that he was in fact a mere trick of light and force-fields. She wondered briefly how he'd reacted when he learned about his status, or if he'd been programmed to know. Humans had a curious habit of outsmarting themselves, she reflected. No Minbari would have had the gall to attempt to upsurp the universe's perogative for creating life.

Vic grinned again, and leaned back to get a better look. Delenn noticed that his eyes lingered for a moment on the bone crest that delicately framed her chesnut hair. "Please, please, just Vic." He nodded to the crest, and went on, "So, Ambassador, which race do you represent in particular? I don't think I've ever seen your kind before, and I'd thought I'd seen 'em all."

"You wouldn't have," Bashir cut in knowingly. "Our guests aren't exactly from our neck of the woods." It was amazing how quickly he fell back into those obscure turns of phrase around the holograph, he thought, mildly amused. "Actually, they're from an alternate universe... which is in fact where we all are right now, but I'm getting ahead of myself."

"No kiddin'?" Vic replied. "Do you people just go looking for every crazy thing in the universe on purpose, or something? Don't answer that," he implored, with a long suffering sigh. "Alright Julian, but Quark told me all about the last time you guys did this, and I'm telling you now, if I see an evil twin of anybody, I'm shuttin' down fast. Capiche'?"

Palms out in mock resignation, Bashir chuckled. "Understood, but I don't think that's going to be a problem."

"Sure, whatever you say, palie-boy," said Vic skeptically. Then his expression lightened considerably, and he easily slipped back into his practiced hosting routine, calling over to the silent barman, "Yo, Frankie, lay out a nice spread. The whole nine yards!" As the bartender disappeared through a doorway behind the bar, Vic turned back. "Well, if you're all looking for a good time, you came to the right joint. Mi casa es tu casa.

"In the meantime, Ms. Ambassador," he went on, gallantly crooking his elbow, and placing Delenn's hand in it, "why don't you tell me a little more about where you come from? It's about time these jokers stumbled on to a nice alternate universe for a change."

"You wouldn't have said that if you'd seen our hasty departure," Bashir said ruefully to their retreating backs. Ezri snorted, and pushed him down into a padded chair at the nearest table. She took the seat on the other side, so she could talk to him directly, over an expanse of white tablecloth and a small candle burning cheerfully within a low glass jar.

Delenn glanced over her shoulder, and catching Sheridan's eyes, shrugged her shoulders in tacit apology, before turning back to Vic Fontaine. A fleeting feeling of jealousy and resentment washed over him, before he could supress the irrational emotion. Something of it must have shown on his face, for Ivanova's brows knitted, and she quietly asked, "Captain, is there something wrong?"

Shaking his head, and turning his eyes to his second in command, Sheridan said, "No, it's nothing, Commander."

"In that case, why don't we all just claim a table?" Marcus suggested. "We may as well sit back and soak up some illusory ambience. What the hell else is there to do?" That remark was uncomfortably truthful, and cast an unpleasent dampener on further conversation. For indeed, at the moment, there was literally nothing they _could_ do towards getting home. Marcus strode over to another nearby table, a discreet distance from where Ezri and Bashir were talking in low voices, and helpfully pulled out one of the chairs, and motioned for Ivanova to sit.

Ignoring the chivalrous gesture, Ivanova walked past him, and dragged a chair over from another table, which she uncermoniously dropped into. Looking crestfallen, Marcus sat in the chair he'd drawn up for Ivanova. Sheridan sighed as he settled into the other chair, the original second at the table, and tapped his fingers broodingly. A glance across the room showed him where their erstwhile host had gone, leaning against the bar, apparently engrossed in conversation with Delenn, who was ramrod straight on the barstool, hands folded primly in her lap.

"So, has anyone seen Garibaldi since this morning?" Ivanova asked, breaking the silence.

Sheridan perked up. "Now that you mention it, no, I haven't." He frowned, suddenly wondering what kind of trouble his security chief could find aboard a single starship. It was a sure bet, if there was some to be found, Michael Garibaldi would be the one to step in it up to his knees.

There was a long pause, which gave Ivanova a moment to notice Marcus's conspicuous silence. "Ok, Marcus," she said finally, giving him time to wilt under her glare. "What do you know?"

Marcus tried hide his smile by looking cowed. "I think I've got a fairly good idea where he might be..."

*****

"And this," Worf said proudly, hoisting a weapon from a broad rack in front of them, "is the newest model of the type three phaser rifle. It has computer assisted targeting, a full range of settings from light stun to outright disintigration, a direct link to the ship's computer, and power pack capable of sustaining seventy-two seconds of continuous fire on maximum setting." He handed the sleek, yet stubby rifle over to his audience.

Garibaldi whistled, and turned it over in practiced hands, examining the black padded stock and dark grey trimmings. Pulling it tight against his shoulder, he pivoted, squinting down the length of the barrel towards the wall at the other end of the aisle of similar weapons racks that lined the armory. "This top piece interferes with the sighting plain," he said critically, lowering the weapon and flicking the offending attatchment with one finger. Where a scope would have been on a PPG assault rifle, or old slugthrower, was a boxy, light-grey chunk of equipment that featured a pulsating blue glow where the eyepiece would have been on a scope. "How're you supposed to aim it?" By this point, he was fairly certain he was missing something that should have been obvious. It had been that way with the other weapons the Klingon had shown him.

Worf's face twisted into what may have been an amused expression, though Garibaldi still wasn't sure if he was reading those facial movements correctly, and he flicked a tiny touchpad on the top of the scope attatchment. Instantly, the blue glow resolved into a tiny video image, complete with rangefinder data, what appeared to be friend-or-foe recognition markers, and a small targetting reticle. Pressing another key on the top of the scope, Worf wordlessly demonstrated how to zoom in and out. "Normally, the targetting sensors are left off-line aboard a starship," Worf explained. "In such close quarters, the weapons are normally sufficiently accurate fired from the hip."

"What about recoil?" Waiting for Worf's answer, Garibaldi hefted the weapon again, and sighted it down the aisle on a wall panel at the other end.

"Negligible. It is a particle weapon, so there is a kenetic shock on the target, but it is almost completely dampened by the rifle." Worf reached across to another rack, and pulled out a weapon that was unlike any of the others in the room. "This is a Klingon disruptor pistol." He bared his teeth, adding, "Klingon weapons designs do not include such... amenities. There are only three settings, equivalent to heavy stun, kill, and disintigrate."

Lowing the phaser rifle, Garibaldi eyed the oddly gothic pistol clamped in Worf's hand. It almost looked like something you could cause grievous injury with, without the hassle of pulling the trigger. "I'll take your word for it," he said. "So how does that stun setting work, anyway?"

"It is sufficient against most beings with central nervous systems." Seeing that Garibaldi was apparently looking for something more, Worf amended, "Perhaps a demonstration is in order. Follow me." He replaced the disruptor on the rack, and lifted a second phaser rifle, turning to walk towards opposite end of the armory from where they'd entered, and the dour noncom who'd let them in.

Still clutching the rifle Worf had handed him earlier, Garibaldi followed, curiosity getting the better of him. After turning through one narrow passage between weapons racks, then around another corner, he found himself staring at a set of very familiar-looking doors. "Hey, these look like the doors that led to the – "

Worf turned to look over his shoulder at the smaller human, as he keyed the doors open.

" – ah," Garibaldi finished, gazing into the pale grey gridlines of another holodeck. Hesistating only a beat, he followed Worf into the room – a smaller one than the last one he'd seen, his eyes told him, but one thankfully free of charging monsters. Behind them, the heavy doors rumbled shut.

"Computer," Worf commanded, glancing reflexively upward, "load combat simulation, level one."

Garibaldi couldn't resist a smirk when Worf's confident demeanor collapsed at the computer's reply; "Unable to comply. Requested program does not exist."

"It has been several years since my last tenure as security chief aboard a starship," Worf offered by way of explanation. "No doubt they have since changed the program names." He took a step backwards into the doorway arch, focusing his attention on a flat black display panel.

"No doubt," Garibaldi echoed drily. 

Worf ignored the slight jibe, and ordered, "Computer, display a complete listing of tactical simulation programs."

Moving to stand next to the big Klingon so he could see the screen more clearly, Garibaldi watched as a list in orange text popped into existence. Almost immediately, Worf growled. Leaning in closer to read the text, he quickly saw why.

The list was relatively long, and broken into segments. Under the segment labelled "Level 1 Infantry Combat Simulations" was a listing of perhaps fifteen or twenty programs. All but one had an additional tag in parenthesies attatched, reading simply, "Incomplete." The remaining one said only, "Ancient West."

Scowling darkly, Worf grumbled, "I iwill/i be speaking to Mr. Boral about this." He really had no desire to see that miserable program, or any variation on it, ever again. But he had promised the human a demonstration, and the more difficult scenarios would be a less than conducive learning environment. Gritting his teeth, Worf plunged ahead, and said, "Computer, activate Ancient West scenario."

Even knowing what to expect, Garibaldi jumped upon suddenly finding himself outdoors, bathed in sunlight – blindingly bright after the more comfortable light level in the armory. The overhanging doorway arch they were standing in was nestled in position from where they were looking down a dusty, sawdust-packed road, leading away from them between rough wooden structures, and a white clapboard church at the end of the path. He became gradually aware that he could smell an unpleasent blend of rotting wood, horse dung, and woodsmoke.

Worf led him out from the arch, which helpfully shimmered and vanished behind them. They were still within the shade provided by an overhang above their heads, which Garibaldi realized was the facing for a stables. He was surprised when Worf shoved a wide-brimmed hat into his hands, and put one on himself. He hadn't even seen where Worf had aquired them from, though he hoped he looked a little less rediculous than the Klingon, who's nearly white hat contrasted sharply with his alien features, dark grey uniform, and swaying ponytail.

"Computer!" Worf called out, stepping into the sunlight, "Create a barricade facing the town, defensive index three." With an audible electronic buzz, several items appeared directly in front of Worf, clearly a defensive position, but arranged to look natural, composed of a small pile of bricks and several sealed wooden barrels, reeking of fresh pitch.

Glancing back, Worf motioned for Garibaldi to take up a position behind the barricade. Then, still standing, Worf said, "Computer, begin program."

The town, which had been eerily silent, suddenly erupted into life. Horses neighed from in the stable, and churchbells rang poderously, twelve times. Garibaldi felt like he was in the middle of a bad vid; high-noon, deserted streets, and a wooden building decked out with classical saloon doors could bode nothing good.

Sure enough, someone shouted, and turning to follow the sound, Garibaldi thought he saw movement in a second floor window. The muzzle flash that followed was startling, but his instincts kicked in, and as he dropped, he heard the bullet crack overhead. _Definately not in Kansas anymore,_ his mind shouted irrationally. _More like Arizona, or New Mexico._

Beside him, something howled, and he glimpsed a blast of orange light as Worf put his phaser rifle to use. He straightened as far as possible in his crouched position, deciding that he wasn't going to let Worf show him up. He scanned the area carefully, before picking out someone rushing out of the saloon entrance, towards a water trough, which he apparently intended to use as cover for the lever-action rifle he carried. Tapping the scope button the way Worf had showed him, Garibladi cranked the power setting to it's lowest, and swiveling, caught the runner in mid-step. He sprawled flat as the beam caught him, but almost immediately, was making a woozy attempt to stand and continue his flight. _Well, that explains what 'stun' means. _

Worf dropped the groggy shooter with a hit that pitched him forwards into the dirt, his back a mass of scorched flesh and burned cloth. Garibaldi winced in sympathy; that looked too familiar.

Thumbing his weapon up several settings, he took aim at a sharpshooter on the saloon roof, ignoring the puffs of dust kicked up by nearby shots and the whine of bullets that were slowly chewing up their barricade. His first squeeze of the trigger sent the gunman reeling – a dangerous situation on the edge of any roof, and he went over the side, impacting the ground with a meaty crunch.

"Heavy stun," Worf said, observing the shot critically. "If he had not fallen, he would have come around in several hours."

"I can see the use in that," Garibaldi returned. Indeed, he was suddenly wishing the two Starfleet vessels had shown up a day or two earlier. It would have been awfully nice to be able to just stun the whole room during that barroom brawl he'd broken up the morning of their arrival. "What about highest setting?" he asked, professional curiosity getting the better of him.

Worf grinned ferally. "Observe," he said, pointing out a small blacksmith's forge, where at least several shooters seemed to be hiding. He pulled the trigger.

It took them both almost a second to realize the weapon hadn't fired. "Weapons settings above twelve are not available in level one tactical simulations," the computer announced.

Growling his frustration, Worf said, "Computer, override weapons settings lockout, authorization, Worf, Lieutenant Commander, access command, _cHaDI'ch_."

The computer chirped a response, and Worf leaned into the rifle.

One entire wall of the blacksmith shed simply ceased to exist. Garibaldi winced at the sharp sound of the blast, and the fate of those inside, even if they were just holographs. There were no flames, or even charred bits of wood – there was only dust and smoke rapidly clearing in the strong breeze, pieces of shattered wood strewn across the ground, and a hole in the wall that a tank could drive through. Without changing settings, Worf turned the rifle on one of the gunmen who'd foolishly left cover to examine the damage. Instead of the gory explosion Garibaldi was half-expecting, the man simply vanished in a bright orange glow.

"I hope you're gonna be payin' for that," someone drawled behind them.

Even Worf looked startled, Garibaldi noticed with grim amusement. They'd both made a classical blunder, too busy seeing what the weapons did, to pay as much attention to their surroundings as they should have. But the big square-jawed man behind them didn't seem inclined to attack.

He glanced at them both, then spat a reddish wad of tabacco into the dust at his feet. Someone else, hidden in the shadows of the stable, leaned out around a post, and called, "John, I think they're trying to make a run around the sides, and cut us off here."

The big man behind them grimaced, and nodded, then looked meaningfully down at Worf and Garibaldi. "No more demolition. If I hear another place fall down... well, I'll have my eye on ya'."

When he turned away, Garibaldi caught a glint of metal on his chest. A sheriff's badge.

"There should be no unnecessary characters in a tactical simulation," Worf said, voicing his disapproval. "Computer, who created this simulation?"

"This level one tactical program was created by Alexander Rozhenko and Lieutenant Reginald Barclay on stardate 46271.5 , modified by Lieutenant Barclay on stardate 48271.7, and modified for training purposes by Lieutenant Boral on stardate 53511.3."

Worf muttered something unprintable in Klingon. Garibaldi wondered again how he'd gotten into this mess, and found his mind wandering. He'd heard that Doctor Bashir had arranged yet another holodeck program that he wanted them to see, and fleetingly, he hoped theirs was something a little less... explosive. He ducked as another bullet slapped into the wood next to his head.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"So, did you learn anything interesting?"

Delenn sat down at the seat opposite Sheridan, and glanced briefly over her shoulder at the holograph, who had launched into a jazzy tune on the narrow stage. "Interesting?" She paused and considered, her eyes unfocusing the tiniest bit. "Yes," she finally said. "But not very informative. He is a very interesting person, but confined to a single room, his perspective would naturally be limited."

"He's not a real person, Delenn, just a computer program," Sheridan said with a faint touch of asperity.

She studied him for a moment, almost reprovingly. "John, do you remember something I once told you? The greatest secret in the universe, I called it."

Sheridan thought back to a brief conversation they'd had, more than a year ago now, he realized with some surprise. "You said," he began, trying to remember her exact words, "that we were all the same, the universe made manifest in us, and that all of the molocules and atoms that make up our bodies are the very same ones created in stars billions of years ago. So we are all..."

"Starstuff," she finished, smiling warmly. "That being the case," she continued resolutely, "where do you think that the energy that he is made of came from?"

Opening his mouth to reply, and coming up with nothing better than stammering, "but, but," he cut himself off with a laugh. "Remind me not to try and argue with you when you've got your mind made up." He paused, noting the mischiveous sparkle in her eyes, and replayed their conversation in his head, then smirked. "And now that you've made me forget the question I just asked, how about you tell me what you learned from Mr. Fontaine."

Two tables over, Ivanova turned curiously as Delenn's delighted laughter carried through the increasing volume of the background murmur, and Vic's singing.

"What do you think is so terribly amusing over there?" Marcus murmured, glancing curiously in that direction.

Ivanova shrugged. "Whatever it is, it's not one of the Captain's 'knock-knock' jokes." Noticing Marcus's blank look, she explained, "I'd like to think Delenn has better taste than that."

She looked up as the song finished, and watched Vic come down from the stage, while the small band nestled in an alcove next to it set down their instruments. Turning to survey the rest of the increasingly crowded lounge, Ivanova did a double-take, returning her eyes to the band. "Hey, Marcus," she said, tugging on his sleeve, and pointing, "doesn't that guy there look familiar?"

He turned to see the trombonist rest his instrument against the back of his chair, and walk into the main room, where he claimed a seat opposite a dark-haired woman, also in a uniform. In the subdued lighting, Marcus was startled to see the glint of a chevron pin and Starfleet uniform tunic among the otherwise tuxedoed band members. He searched his memory... Susan was right, that man did look familiar. Then it clicked, as he thought back on their brief meeting before Delenn turned the universe upside down with her revalations about Babylon 4. "That would be this ship's first officer, Commander... well, Commander something or other," he supplied lamely. "He wasn't at the briefing this morning. Come to think of it, neither was she," Marcus added, noting the woman.

Ivanova squinted at the officer, and was forced to agree with Marcus's identification. _Riker_. The name swam through her mind instantly; part and parcel of an edetic memory. She hadn't even seen either of them come in, though, and now that she looked around, there did seem to be an awful lot of people, some in Starfleet uniforms, and others wearing clothes as dated as Vic Fontaine's. She chided herself for not being more attentive aboard a starship crewed by people who's intentions she still didn't entirely trust. Studying her surroundings more carefully, she realized that many of the tables had been filled by Starfleet officers, people who were probably also holodeck characters, and even, to her surprise, a small cluster of white-robed Minbari come over from the White Star. The latter had congregated about a single table in a corner, and were being regaled enthusiatically by Vic.

In one booth tucked in along a finished wooden wall, in even dimmer lighting, Geordi LaForge, Data, Lennier, and one other man who Ivanova didn't recognize, were poring over a small pile of padds and readout screens scattered on the table between them. This time, more aware of the bustle of the crowd, Ivanova glanced at the far wall mid-way between the booths and the stage, where a distinctly out of place doorway arch suddenly appeared, seeming to flow from the paneling.

Marcus must have seen the look on Ivanova's face, because his eyebrows knitted, and he asked, "What?" The question died in his throat as he turned to follow her eyes. Behind him, two very distinctive figures were sillouetted against the brighter light of the outside corridor.

Nearly filling the archway shoulder to shoulder, Worf and Garibaldi stepped into the comfortably low light of the old-fashioned lounge, blinking while their eyes adjusted to the change. After a cursory glance, with Garibaldi's hand propped firmly on the butt of his holstered PPG, they drank in the scene, and began making a beeline towards the table Marcus and Ivanova were seated at.

As they approached, Ivanova waved and called, "Chief, we were just talking about you!"

"Saying something flattering, I trust?" Garibaldi returned, glowering down at the commander. When they both started to laugh, he swung his hand around, in a gesture encompassing the entire room. "So what is this place, anyway? This has got to be the first of these holoprograms I've seen that isn't trying to shoot, stab, spindle, fold, or otherwise mutilate me."

Worf's heavy brows gathered, and his eyes narrowed. "Unless I am mistaken, this is the Vic Fontaine program." His voice developed a tinge of confusion. "However, I do not believe there is more than one copy of the program, and the holosuites in Quark's bar were offline for maintenance." Dawning comprehension. "...Doctor Bashir," he growled.

"And this is a problem?" Ivanova asked.

"It is a breach of station security." The response was snapped, almost as if unconciously rehearsed. But the Klingon's tone grew conciliatory as he conceeded, "As I am no longer Chief of Strategic Operations, and no longer have any authority over Deep Space Nine, it is... not my problem." The words were forced, and Garibaldi had the distinct impression that Worf was arguing with himself about whether or not to arrest the good doctor.

Vic himself broke the awkward pause that followed, coming up behind them, and clapping Worf heartily on the back – an action few others would dare. "Long time, no see, Worf. No, wait, that's Mr. Ambassador now, isn't it?"

Worf exhaled slowly, something rumbling in his throat, as he looked over his shoulder at the affable hologram. "It is... good... to see you again, Vic. But 'Worf' will suffice. I do not care for the title."

"Say no more, palie-boy," Vic said, making a zipper motion across his lips. He looked like he was about to say something further, but the band struck up another tune – minus Riker, Ivanova noticed – and Vic Fontaine inclined his head sharply. "That's my cue," he said, ambling off between tables towards the stage.

"I was going to ask if you'd like to join me for a drink," Worf said, turning back to Garibaldi, and jerking his head in the direction of the bar, where several empty seats were available beside someone, who from Ivanova's perspective, appeared only as a shiny orange cranium, framed by an impressive set of ears.

Shaking his head, Garibaldi declined. "Sorry Lieutenant Commander, but I'm a teetotaler. No alcohol at all."

Looking faintly nonplussed, Worf also shook his head. "I did not mean we should share a barrel of bloodwine. The replicator cannot do it justice, and I did not bring any of my own supplies on this mission. However, we did set a new record in that tactical simulation, so I would be honored to share a true warrior's drink with you."

Not liking the sound of something called 'bloodwine,' Garibaldi swallowed, picturing something thouroughly revolting. On the other hand, having seen the Klingon hurl a gunslinger up on to, and through, a stable roof, he wasn't inclined to offer Worf any insult. "What kind of 'warrior's drink' did your people come up with anyway?"

Worf scowled, as if perplexed. "It is ironic, but it is a human beverage. It is called 'prune juice.'"

Garibaldi winced. _That's almost as bad as I was imagining. Not quite, but nearly. _"Thanks, but no thanks. My intestinal tract is working just fine." Groping for some excuse, so that he could refuse without sounding petulant, he tacked on, "Besides, I think prune juice is specifically barred by the food plan Doctor Franklin has got me on. So it's really out of my hands." He spread those hands in false apology.

When Worf appeared to be on the verge of making the same offer to Ivanova and Marcus, Ivanova blurted, "I'm on the same... uh, food plan, that Mr. Garibaldi is."

Marcus looked around, and shrugged. "I'll take you up on that, Mr. Worf, if these two don't have the stomach for it."

"You are a warrior?" Worf asked suspiciously. 

Shrugging modestly, Marcus replied, "In a manner of speaking. I'm with the Anla'shok. The nearest English equivalent is 'Rangers.'"

"Mercenaries."

Marcus's mouth twisted at Worf's assertion. "Not exactly. Come on, I'll tell you all about it over that glass of – " he swallowed hard – "prune juice." Suiting action to words, he pushed back his chair, and followed the Klingon to the bar.

As they strode away, Garibaldi grimaced, and grabbed a chair from the adjacent unoccupied table, turning it backwards with a practiced twist of the hand. He pushed it up against the table, next to Ivanova, and straddled the seat so he could lean forward into the backrest, and peer at her. He'd noticed that her face was teeming with unasked questions from the moment he'd walked in. She returned his scrutiny with a hooded glare, but he could see she was forcing the expression – the corners of her mouth twitched upwards as she wrestled with a grin.

"So," Garibaldi began, just trying to make idle conversation, "what exactly's going on here anyway?"

Ivanova's burgeoning smile dried up instantly, and Garibaldi cursed himself for having said anything. "I gather this is supposed to be some kind of informal reception," she explained, looking vaguely troubled.

"What's the problem then?"

"What problem?" Ivanova countered sharply. "What makes you think I have any problem at all with being dragged through time, dumping Jeff a thousand years in the past, then getting sucked along into another universe with a bunch of kooks and their flashy ships? I'm. Just. Peachy."

"Right," Garibaldi snorted. "And Atilla the Hun was just a little cranky." He lowered his voice, his tone turning serious. "Listen, Commander, I can't say I like this whole situation any better than you do, but flying off the handle is not gonna help. My gut says we can trust these people; 'course, my gut's been wrong before." Even as the words left his mouth, his back twinged painfully where the scars of a PPG burn still marred the skin. "For now, follow the Captain's example. We go along with this, until we either figure out how to get home on our own, or these people do something we don't like."

Ivanova sighed gustily, but relented. "Fine. I still don't like this, Michael. Something's going on behind the scenes, and I intend to find out exactly what." She glanced up at him, looking oddly vulnerable. "But you're right. For now, we play along."

Garibaldi smiled, and allowed his shoulders to relax. "Good. Besides," he added with a grin, waving his hand at their surroundings, "these particular kooks and their flashy ships have some _extremely _cool toys."

A laugh forced itself out of Ivanova's throat, and she favored him with a half-smile. "Glad to see you're keeping our priorities straight. Coffee, steak, _then _the way home."

"Hey, one of us has to have some perspective." He looked around again, more appraisingly. "I wonder if we could get one of these holodecks installed on the station."

It was Ivanova's turn to snort. "Sure, no problem. This place would make the ritziest holo-brothel on Earth look positively sad in comparison."

"Well, granted, we'd probably have to shove Londo out an airlock to keep him from taking up permanent residence... but I don't see the problem there."

Ivanova laughed again, harder, while Garibaldi chuckled, easily picturing Londo's reaction to this technology. When they recovered, neither said a word, prefering a few moments of companionable silence amid the low hum of activity around them. So both were startled when a third voice asked, "Excuse me, mind if I join you?"

Looking up at the newcomer, they both reflexively jumped to their feet. Their reactions to rank were deeply ingrained, and held sway, even if the rank in question wasn't Earthforce, nor the person bearing it in a uniform of any type.

Picard smiled, and waved them back into their seats. Feeling their eyes on him, he self-conciously tugged his jacket straighter in a move more suited to his uniform tunic than to the white tuxedo he was wearing.

"Uh, no, no problem, Captain, have a seat," Ivanova said, trying not to stare. She gestured to the chair recently vacated by Marcus.

Taking the seat gracefully, Picard smiled again, doffed his battered leather fedora, and set it on the table in front of him. "Thank you. I thought we might be able to put off more pressing concerns for the time being. What do you think of the holodeck so far?"

"It's just great!" Ivanova said quickly. "But ah..." she trailed off, trying not to look completely foolish as she studied the Starfleet captain's choice of wardrobe.

"What's with the getup?" Garibaldi asked more bluntly.

Picard looked down at himself, as if noticing his odd clothing for the first time. "Oh, these. I borrowed them, in a manner of speaking. I normally wear these in my Dixon Hill persona." He shrugged in an amused gesture, adding, "I thought I might try and fit in a little. This program of Doctor Bashir's seems to be from the same era."

"You're about twenty years out of date," Garibaldi cut in smugly.

"I beg your pardon?"

Grinning with the chance to show off some of the trivia he'd picked up from hours spent in front of 20th century vids, Garibaldi said, "Your clothing is about twenty years old. Dixon Hill was from the nineteen-thirties, and early forties. This program has got to be late nineteen-fifties, maybe the sixties."

Ivanova turned her stare on him, full force, but Picard grinned delightedly. "You've heard of Dixon Hill?"

Garibaldi snorted, as if his intelligence was being questioned. "You better believe it. Though speaking for myself, I like Mike Hammer's style better."

Picard chuckled softly. "Yes, I would think so, based on what Worf has told me."

With a surreal feeling, Ivanova shook her head, breaking into the conversation before it could get off the ground. "Doesn't this bother you?" She directed the question to a point midway between the two men. "I mean, I'm amazed that most of your crew doesn't live in these things permanently."

His smile fading, Picard nodded more seriously. "Most of us can readily tell the difference between reality and this," he said, cocking his head, to encompass their surroundings. "But sometimes, that does become a problem." He cleared his throat, not saying any more, though his thoughts invariably turned to Reginald Barclay, who, from what he'd heard, had reverted to his holo-addiction during his tenure on Earth.

Shifting uncomfortably, Garibaldi never heard what Ivanova's reply might have been.

Marcus was standing over them, casting a faint shadow across the table in the candlelight. His face was drawn and pale, and somehow managing to look unmistakably green at the same time. "Bathroom?" he choked out, swaying, then swallowing hard.

They exchanged glances at the Ranger's queasy appearence, but Ivanova, who'd thought to check on that detail earlier, pointed him in the right direction.

"Thanks Susan," he gasped. Then, shuddering, he clapped a hand over his mouth, and raced off in the indicated direction, stumbling between several tables, and nearly plowing into a chair in the process.

"Do I dare ask what just happened?" Picard asked with a slightly amused inflection.

Garibaldi shrugged. "Beats me. He left a little while ago to share a round of prune juice with Worf."

Picard mused on that, developing a fairly clear picture in his mind of what must have transpired. He decided to confirm it, as the Klingon covered the distance between the bar and their table. "Mr. Worf?"

"Captain." Worf spoke the greeting with an even tone, already knowing what his commanding officer was going to ask. "Mr. Cole said he was interested in sampling some basic Klingon dishes. I do not believe the _gagh_ agreed with him." He only allowed slight disapproval to color his tone. The Ranger had, after all, tried the rokeg blood pie and heart of targ without much hesitation.

"Gagh?" Ivanova repeated, only belatedly realizing she'd spoken out loud.

"Klingon serpent worms, Commander Ivanova," Picard answered, before the Klingon could comment on her painful pronounciation. "Usually served live. It is considered a sign of strength to be able to eat food that does its best to return the favor. It's an... acquired taste."

Feeling his stomach knot, Garibaldi hoped the description would stop there, or he'd end up in the head with Marcus, relieving himself of everything he'd eaten during the day. From the look on Ivanova's face, he gathered that she was trying to mask a similar reaction.

Worf apparently saw as much, and nodding to the captain, stalked off between the tables towards the front of the room, where Vic had just finished another song.

"Why don't the two of you tell me more about what is going on in your timeline?" Picard remarked casually, dragging their attention away from Klingon cuisine.

"Under one condition," Ivanova said, bringing Picard's eyebrows up. "First, you tell us more about yours. You spent four hours checking our history tapes yesterday, and we know almost next to nothing. I don't like not knowing."

Picard's lips formed a wry smile. "That is true enough," he said. "Where would you like me to begin?"

On stage, Vic Fontaine broke into a haunting rendition of "All the Way," while Worf sank into an empty chair nearby, his face tensed, and expression unreadable.

*****

Sipping her raktajino contentedly, Ezri leaned back in her chair, and stared into Bashir's eyes as he wrapped up his story. He'd begun by explaining how he'd "liberated" Vic's program from Quark's holosuites while work was being done on them – Vic's constantly running program finally causing enough wear-and-tear that even Quark agreed it was time for an overhaul. Then he'd gone on to describe the things he'd seen aboard Babylon 5 in vivid detail, from the spectacular wraparound landscape visible from the core shuttle, to the sprawling Medlab complex – going into more detail there than she really wanted to know – and the mingling of dozens of completely unheard-of races in the Zocalo. Her expression of rapt attention covered the pang of jealousy she felt on hearing about things she'd much rather being seeing in person. Well, other than Medlab, that is, she added in a moment of irreverence.

He ended his tale with his account of fleecing the Centauri ambassador in a game of darts... something Miles O'Brien could have sympathized with. He said as much. Ezri grinned with him, easily able to picture the scene, having witnessed similar dart games at Quark's. But behind his laugh, she could see an unpleasent shadow lurking.

Covering one of his hands with her own, she waited for his smile to fade before asking, "You miss him, don't you?"

Bashir started, then ducked his head guiltily. "Yeah," he admitted, "Back on the station, both of them, I kept thinking about how much he'd have loved a chance to poke around in there. It would have been just like old times."

Ezri snorted at that. "Julian, as I recall, on not a few away missions, you two ended up nearly killing each other."

"Now that's an exaggeration!" he protested.

"Is it?" She grinned wickedly, and for a moment, he saw a spark of Jadzia's devious sense of humor in her eyes. "What about the time where you two were trying to deactivate those harvesters, on T'Lani Three? Or how about the time when you two ended up prisoners of some rogue Jem'Hadar? And then there's – "

"Alright!" He held up his free hand to stop her. "That's not really fair, you know," he added petulantly, "you weren't even there for any of those."

"Concession accepted," she murmured sweetly. "Sorry, but the thought of you two working on a time machine is something that would give a Breen chills."

He opened his mouth to point out that that neither were exactly unheard of, but decided better of it. Instead, he settled for squeezing her hands, and using his free hand to take a sip of his martini on the rocks, shaken, not stirred. He had only grudgingly decided not to enter the program as his secret agent persona, and remain in his uniform. Having seen Picard's outfit, however, he was again regretting that decision.

Preoccupied with his recollections of the last time he'd actually used that program, where his only help was the scathingly amused commentary of Elim Garak, he barely noticed as Vic launched into another song. That is, he didn't really take note until he felt Ezri's hands tense under his own, and looking up, startled, saw her stiffen suddenly, the smile vanished from her features.

"Oh Worf..." She whispered the words with infinite sadness behind them. Abruptly pulling away from Bashir, her expression was torn as she hesitated. Then inhaling sharply, stood and nearly ran out the door into the corridor beyond, leaving the holographic fantasy behind.

Stunned, Bashir jumped up and followed her out, trying to understand what had just happened. Catching up to her in the hall, which was fortunately empty – everyone who might have had an excuse to be there already in Vic's – he caught her by the shoulders, and spun her around to face him. "Ezri! Ezri, what happened?" He was appalled that she looked as close to tears as he'd ever seen her.

"I'm sorry, Julian," she said, choking off a sob. "Didn't you recognize that song?"

Frowning, because he hadn't noticed, he tried to lighten her mood. "No, I wasn't paying attention. I was a bit distracted by my charming and witty companion."

She didn't rise to the bait, but sniffled and blinked hard a few times. It wouldn't do for anyone to see a trained counselor break down in public. "That was Jadzia's favorite song Worf requested back there. He still misses her."

Bashir felt a momentary surge of anger, at Worf for being insensitive enough to ask for that song while Ezri was in the room, at Vic for actually singing it, and at himself for not having been able to protect her from the painful rush of emotions she was going through as a result. But his mind cleared quickly; he couldn't blame Worf for missing Jadzia... hell, _he_ still missed her. And he couldn't blame Vic for not refusing a request, nor himself for failing to do the impossible.

Sighing helplessly, he did what he could to ease her pain, throwing his arms around her, and simply holding her to him. Here he was, one of only two doctors along on this insane mission, and there was little he could do to heal the one person he cared most about. He felt her relax into his embrace, and her trembling cease. They were standing like that when the holodeck doors rumbled open.

"I hope I'm not interrupting," Deanna Troi said with no trace of embarrasment at seeing them that way. "I saw you leave that way, and came to see if there was anything I can do to help."

Ezri flashed her a grateful smile, but shook her head. "No, no, I'm fine, really." She took a deep breath, and composed herself. "Thank you for the offer. But, ah, you know... physician, heal thyself. I can deal with it."

With a concerned glance, Troi nodded, but said, "I've noticed that those who live by that phrase are the ones who generally need the help the most. If you need to talk, feel free to make an appointment."

"How about we call it a night," Bashir suggested, leading Ezri down the corridor.

"But what about Vic?" she protested, weakly.

"He can take care of himself. I'll drop by tomorrow and apologize for walking out so early, how about that?"

"Alright," she agreed reluctently. "So," she said, developing a mischevious grin, "your place or mine?"

Troi watched them departing down the hall, smiling, then turned back towards the holodeck. She laughed softly, hearing Bashir say, "Why not both? We won't get to Earth until late morning," before the heavy doors rolled shut behind her. Her smile briefly disappeared as she resolved to have a talk with Worf, then returned full force as the atmosphere in the room washed over her.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Gasping against the agony in her head as she slowly woke, Ivanova lay still and blinked hard until the ache slowly receded into a more bareable sensation – something merely on par with having a white hot railroad spike driven through her skull. Opening her eyes against the pleasently dim overhead lighting, she took a moment to study her utilitarian surroundings, and recognition set in. She was in the quarters she'd been given aboard the Enterprise, and now more than ever she appreciated not having to had to sleep on the White Star. A forty-five degree angle would not have mixed well with her hangover. She frowned at the thought, and tried to remember how she'd ended up like that; one thing she did remember was Guinan telling her that synthehol didn't leave someone feeling like they'd gotten caught in a mob of green and purple Drazi. Which meant that somewhere along the line, she'd gotten ahold of the real thing.

Most of the night was a blur after the long conversation she and Marcus had had with Captain Picard. She remembered ruthlessly quashing Marcus before he could come out with any French jokes, after he'd learned of Picard's roots. Though the captain's decidedly non-French accent had thrown the Ranger for a proverbial loop.

She sat up, forcing down a surge of sour bile. She desperately hoped that she hadn't thrown up, or done anything obscene during the peiod she couldn't remember.

In sharp contrast to her self-imposed misery, an alarmingly cheerful voice with a very familiar English accent intruded on her well-earned mope. "Well, look who's finally awake! Feeling any better, Susan?"

A fresh throb of pain seared through her brain, but she still had time to be completely mortified. "Marcus! What the hell are you doing in my quarters?" A second, much more alarming thought occurred before he had a chance to respond, and she looked down at herself, afraid to see what she might or might not be wearing. She let out a breath when she saw that she was still wearing the same uniform from last night, with the exception of the jacket, which had been neatly folded and placed on the nightstand.

To her surprise, when she looked back at him, she saw that he had flushed an improbable shade of crimson at her implication. "To answer your questions;" he got out, "First, you aren't in your quarters, these are mine. Yours were locked, and you weren't in any condition to tell me the passcode. And second," his face grew even redder, "nothing happened, nothing at all. I spent the night – the whole night – on the couch in the other room."

He was expecting nothing less than a full-blown tantrum from hell, replete with grevious physical violence on his person. So it was with some surprise that he watched her simply sag back and run a hand through her bedraggled hair. "I'm sorry, Marcus, I know you'd never do something like that. Thank you." It came out as a harsh whisper, her eyes focused on the floor. "But do you think you could stop talking so loud?"

"You're welcome," he replied in a much softer tone, trying not to push his luck. By now, his face had turned so red, Ivanova found herself absently wondering if she'd hear a noise when the vein in his forhead popped. But he pressed on. "I'd never take advantage of you, Susan. Never." Then he managed to ruin what could have been a tender moment by adding, "Particularly when you were so entertaining that it took fourteen security guards to restore order after you got up on stage."

Even reflexes honed by training with Durhan himself weren't fast enough to dodge the small pillow she hurled at him.

He grinned at her furious expression, then brought up his peace offering, in the form of a cylindrical metal hypospray. "It's a detox compound Doctor Crusher gave me," he explained. "I can vouch for its effectiveness. I had a few too many last night myself," he confessed at her bemused regard, and shrugged. "When one lives among Minbari, the opportunities to indulge are few and far between. Nonexistent, actually. And I needed some way to cover the taste of Klingon blood pie."

Ivanova sighed. Arguing with Marcus was one thing, arguing with her splitting headache was something else entirely. Unbuttoning the cuff of her right sleeve, and rolling up the fabric, she resignedly held out her arm.

"Uh, uh," he said, shaking his head, "it has to be injected into the shoulder."

She glared daggers at him, and tried unsuccessfully to roll her sleeve up over her shoulder. Foiled by the unyielding fabric, she tried tugging her collar to one side to free one shoulder, with similar results. The daggers became broadswords. Reaching for the hypo, she firmly told him, "Out, Marcus," and pointed towards the door.

Instead, he twisted the hypspray around her grasping hand, and up against her shoulder. She felt it press against her skin, heard a hiss, and a barely tangible pressure through the fabric of her shirt. "Done. It, ah, goes right through fabric."

She stared at him indignantly. "You knew that." Her tone was fiercely accusing, and he raised his hands meekly. "You knew it," she repeated. "And you let me squirm. I oughta..." She stopped her tirade before she really got going, and blinked several times, licking her lips. The roaring headache and pressure behind her eyes had suddenly abated, taking her fury with it.

Picking up on her suddenly changed demeanor, Marcus grinned, and said, "Care to join me for breakfast? I've already made enough for both of us. Oh, and the head is over there," he added, pointing to another door beyond the bed.

For a moment, she wondered why he had bothered to point out the location of the bathroom, but that slipped away in the face of other questions. "Breakfast? What time is it, anyway?"

"About nine-thirty in the morning. We should be reaching Earth in another hour, or so." He motioned towards the partition that seperated the large room. "That'll give you enough time to eat, then get over to your own quarters, shower, and change."

"An hour!" She scrubbed her hands through her hair, grimacing. "And I don't know about how Rangers prepare for really short missions, but I sure didn't bring any change of clothes. What was the point? We only should've been gone for – ohhh..." She trailed off, and bolted for the head, as the effects of a complete detoxification in a matter of seconds made itself apparent. That Marcus had anticipated her need only irked her more.

When she emerged, she saw that he had moved into the other room. Grabbing her uniform jacket from the nightstand, Ivanova followed him, stopping short at the threshhold, as she caught sight of the table he'd set. She knew her eyes must be as big as saucers, but she didn't care. She hadn't see a spread like that since Londo's ascension day, and that had all been Centauri delicacies. Pancakes, carefully topped with pats of butter, were piled high alongside a repectable mound of bacon and sausages. Hash browns and a platter of eggs sunny-side up sat beside a steaming pot of coffee, and a pitcher of maple syrup.

Marcus was already heaping food onto his own plate, and he motioned her to sit opposite him and do the same.

"First things first," she said, using an irritated tone to cover her bemusement. "As I had been trying to say a few minutes ago, I didn't bring a change of clothes."

"Neither did I, actually, but that's less of a problem than you might think," Marcus replied, spreading syrup over a small mountain of pancakes on his plate. He made no move to stand, or explain further.

"Now, Marcus."

Heaving a sigh, he favored his food with a comically mournful expression, and jumped out of his seat. From experience, he knew that when her tone reached that particular level of annoyance, it was time to play nice or get hurt. He strode past her, leading her to the wall directly across from the table, and next to the room's entrance, where a small alcove was set into the surface, alongside a small control panel, who's precise function he couldn't guess at. As far as he could tell, the ship's computer was so omnipresent, you could fly and fight the whole ship just by talking to it. To Ivanova's consternation, he yanked off his left boot, and stuck it in the alcove, shoving it to one side.

"You uh... got our food from that thing?" She sounded less than thrilled, and more than a little sickened.

"I didn't stick my dirty socks in the food," he said, exasperated. "Just watch." Looking back at the alcove, he said in a louder voice, "Computer, duplicate that object."

There was, as far as Ivanova was concerned, a disgustingly cheerful chirp from the computer. And within the alcove, something hummed briefly before a sparkling column of light filled the unoccupied half of the small chamber. And then there were two virtually identical boots.

Ivanova shook her head disbelievingly. "Think they'd give me one of these things to put in my quarters back on B5?"

Grinning hugely, Marcus pulled out the cloned footgear, and held it up for inspection. "You can even have the computer do a little tailoring work. There's also a regular laundry bin in the bathroom, though I don't suppose you noticed it."

Taking a small measure of revenge for that remark, she grinned. "Well, I can see this would come in handy for you, Marcus." At his puzzled gaze, she put on a devilish smirk, and confided, "I always knew you had two left feet."

*****

"Have you detected any signs of civilization yet, Captain?"

Sheridan glanced over his shoulder and acknowledged Lennier's silently shaking head before turning back to the rippling image of his Starfleet counterpart. "Not a damned thing."

Flying in tandem, the three starships had come out of warp just outside the system, where the White Star was detatched to continue the flight under its own power. Now arcing on a sunward trajectory calculated to swing them past the Jovian micro-system, which was heavily settled in both of their own universes, the three ships were looking for any of the visible signs of humanity's presence. They had been disappointed so far. As they approached the asteroid belt, avoiding it by travelling above the ecliptic, Captain Picard had insisted that they look for evidence of asteroid mining. Again, thus far their efforts had been fruitless.

It had been disturbing enough passing Jupiter, with no hint of hyperspace beacons, the Io jumpgate, or any other vessels in the normally crowded spacelane, but the continued silence was becoming downright frightening. Sheridan shivered, briefly wondering if perhaps in this version of what he considered reality, the Minbari hadn't surrendered at the Line, and finished the job. Or more distressingly, that humanity had simply strangled in the cradle. He had heard about what the Starfleet officers had been expecting to find at Epsilon Eridani, and intellectually, understood the possibilities, but damn it, this was _Earth_, not some alien planet he'd never heard of or seen before.

"Understood," Picard said evenly. Evidentally, this sort of impossible happenstance didn't affect him as badly. "In another forty-nine minutes, we'll begin a low-level decceleration that should put us into Earth orbit twelve minutes later." His holographic image faded and the faint rippling in the air dissapated.

Sheridan turned back towards his own bridge, directing his eyes towards Lennier. "Have you got that?"

"Yes Captain." He made a movement that might have been a bow, without actually being a bow.

Barely noticing that much, Sheridan glared out at the stars visible in the forward windows, and the brighter yellow sun that drowned out almost all of them, even at this distance. Of their own accord, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists atop the armrests of the wide command chair. He hated having no idea of what to expect, especially on his own home planet. But more to the point, the concept that everything he knew and remembered, his family, his home, even Earth Alliance, never existed. That was the only thing he could imagine more terrible than death.

It would take a machete to cut through the tension on the White Star's bridge, and Sheridan was painfully aware that nearly all of it radiated from him. That shouldn't have surprised him much – the rest of the crew was Minbari, and to them, for the moment, the issue was more of an intellectual curiosity than anything else. Aggravated, he hoped that they would take it just as badly if they had gone a few dozen light-years in the other direction, and had to face the non-existence of the Minbar they knew. And then he remembered that they already had faced it; no one had ever heard of the Minbari in Picard's universe. Somehow, that bothered him even more, as if they had simply accepted it as the whim of the universe that in some realities, none of them had ever existed.

"Can you detect anything at all, Mr. Lennier? Something that might at least try and explain what happened here?"

Lennier looked pained, but he hid it well behind his customary impassiveness. "Captain, I regret to report that my answer is the same as it was ten minutes ago."

Sheridan grumbled darkly, continuing to glare at the forward windows, where the sun was growing steadily larger and brighter.

"John," a soft voice called, slicing through his aimless brooding. When she saw that she'd caught his attention, Delenn smiled sternly. "We will get there when we get there, and will find what we will find. No amount of frustration will change that."

"Yeah, well its a little tough for me to relax. While we're off on this interdimensional joyride, I've just dumped responsibility for a quarter million people, the Rangers, and the alliance we've created to fight the Shadows, all in the laps of Lieutenant Corwin and Zack Allan." He shook his head distressingly. "For all I know, the whole place has already been blown to hell by the Shadows, the Centauri, Earthforce, or all of the above."

Now her expression grew vaguely troubled. "That is all true." But she firmly set her uneasiness aside, saying, "Since we have no way to go home without finishing this... joyride, for now, we must accept that the universe will attend to itself."

"Which universe, though?" he mumbled. Then taking a deep breath, he watched her emerald eyes take on a pleased light as he said, "Faith manages, huh?" Even as he said it, he felt the tension melting away, retreating with the anxiety back into the darker corners of his subconcious.

Her smile broadened. "Yes." Then she added, almost as an afterthought, "And besides, you were becoming a..." she struggled for the words, "I believe the phrase is; pain in the ass?"

Sheridan's dignity crashed and burned as he ogled the petite Minbari ambassador, not quite sure he'd heard right.

"Though I still do not know what an Earth pack animal has to do with someone making themselves irritating," she went on, purposely oblivious of his unconcealed shock.

"You have got to stop talking to Mr. Garibaldi. He's a bad influence. No, that's an understatement. Next time he tries to tell you something like that, let me know so I can shoot him."

Eyes glittering maliciously, she innocently replied, "Mr. Garibaldi has already been shot in the back once... but if you shoot any lower, he will have a real pain in the – "

"Delenn!" Sheridan dragged the word out pleadingly, and she finally relented with a gentle laugh. 

"See? You are feeling better already," she pronounced, as if daring him to contradict her.

He shot her a dismayed look, which turned into a chuckle when he realized that she was right – he was feeling a bit better. At least he wasn't brooding anymore. Though he was definately going to have to have a long chat with Garibaldi, and explain a few things in a way that would penetrate even the security chief's thick skull. As he tried to decide between thumbscrews or a cat-'o-nine-tails, the small blue planet that was their destination grew steadily nearer.

*****

Hurrying down the brightly lit corridor on course for a turbolift, even without a clear destination in mind, Garibaldi was prepared for almost anything. Which is perhaps why the universe chose to blindside him. Focused on the various bleak scenarios his brain was coming up with in anticipation of their arrival at Earth, while trying to simultaneously keep eyes in the back of his head without looking conspicuous, he turned the corner into a transverse hallway without seeing the obstruction until several instants after impact.

"Ooof!" The air evacuating her lungs in one swift whoosh, Ivanova sprawled backwards, landing squarely on her rump with an undignified squeak.

Garibaldi was rocked backwards, but handled the impact much better. "Whoa! Sorry about that, Commander." He reached down to make amends by helping her up, which she grudgingly accepted, irritably brushing an errant auburn lock out of her eyes. She looked like hell as far as he was concerned, though better by far than she had been the previous night, passed out under the table. Her hair was a frizzy cloud around her head, her eyes were just starting to lose their puffiness, and her uniform was rumpled and creased. At almost the same moment as he pulled her up, he realized that one reason he hadn't seen her coming was that she had just come out of the door closest to the corner he'd rounded. A door that was the only way in or out of Marcus's cabin.

She saw the route his gaze was following, and cut him off at the pass. "One word, Michael, just one lousy word, and I promise that you will live just long enough to regret it." There was a familiar snap of authority in her tone, along with a blatently non-nonsense attitude.

Naturally, his mouth opened of its own accord – a trait that had gotten him in heaps of trouble on more than one occasion, as if he couldn't resist testing her limits by uttering the first word that popped into his head, whatever that might be.

Again though, she cut him off before he could even peel his tongue off the roof of his mouth. "Not a word!" she repeated sharply. "Nothing at all happened, so if you know what's good for you, you'll drag your twisted mind out of the gutter, and pretend this never happened. Got it?"

He blinked, feeling blood rush to his face at her implication, and took a step back in the face of her blustery tongue-lashing. _She knows me _way _too well, _he thought, disconcerted. Out loud, he said, "Yes ma'am!" He hoped he'd managed a suitably chastised tone, but inwardly, he doubted it. He consoled himself by reminding himself that if they ever managed to get back home, there'd be plenty of opportunities to make pithy comments about her relationship with Marcus, not to mention the way things seemed to be going between the Captain and Delenn. Yes, he could hold off on the embarassing jokes and pranks for now. 

"That's better," a mollified Ivanova responded, intruding on his malicious thoughts.

Garibaldi hadn't been looking for her, specifically, but now that he'd found her, it was as good a time as any to mention that they were only a half-hour from finding God-knows-what at Earth. But before he could begin, his nose picked up on a very distinctive smell. He stepped in front of her, blocking her path as she tried to go around him. "Commander," he started, inhaling deeply, "is that bacon I smell?"

"Yeah, why?" Then she noticed his despairing expression, and clapped a hand to her mouth, as if trying to take the words back, or maybe just trying to stifle a giggle. He had his suspicions about which one it was. "Couldn't you figure out how to work the replicator?" She was trying to look chagrined, but not very well, and his suspicions were confirmed.

"Of course," he lied through his teeth. "But as far as I'm concerned, synthetics can't do it justice." In fact, he knew damn well that replicated foods tasted a hell of a lot better than synthetics, but he figured he could pass off that excuse more easily than he could admit to the fact that he'd spent almost an hour of the morning tapping randomly at the unmarked control panel next to the replicator, and only eventually ending up with a substance that smelled and tasted almost but not quite entirely unlike tea. That mess was only mitigated by his discovery of the Enterprise's extensive database of Loony Toons vids. He snorted softly. If this ship wasn't carrying around the sum total of all human knowledge, it was at least making a sporting effort at trying.

Ivanova, of course, saw right through him. "Right. Well, I'd better get back to my quarters and get ready for the six kinds of hell we're almost definately gonna get caught in today."

"Good to see you're as cheerful as ever, Commander."

As she walked away, she looked over her shoulder, and said, "Oh, Marcus is still eating. There should be some food left."

Wincing at her parting shot, he ducked into the cabin set aside for the Ranger, not too surprised to find the occupant working his way through a small stack of pancakes. 

"Good morning, Mr. Garibaldi," Marcus said around a mouthful.

Garibaldi shook his head on seeing the remains of the breakfast. From the looks of it, Marcus could have hosted a small army comfortably. "'Morning, Marcus," he greeted. Before he said more, he grabbed a plate that might have held sausages, and started piling the food onto it. Marcus looked curiously surprised, but didn't say anything.

"You look like you've been awake for a while," Marcus observed. "Have you found out anything I should know about?"

Shrugging as he continued to shovel food onto his plate, Garibaldi said, "Not really. Well, not unless you should know that none of us ever existed in this little slice of reality."

"Oh, is that all?" Marcus paused, watching the food vanish from the chief's plate at an alarming rate. "You did know that the replicators are voice-activated, right?" He laughed when Garibaldi only coughed and bent over his food with all of his attention. "How do they know that none of us exist in this universe?"

That at least, was a question that Garibaldi was willing to answer. "I talked to the Captain earlier, and he says that as far as he can tell with the White Star's sensors, there's nothing here that's not on Earth. Io had no tranfer point, we can't get communications traffic on any channels, including gold channel, and from what we can tell, Mars is barren." He chewed another bite thoughtfully, then swallowed. "We might not be getting clear readings just yet, but it doesn't even look like there's anything artificial in Earth orbit. It's like they never even made it into space... or somebody blew them back into the Stone Age," he said, scowling.

"Glad to see that you're remaining so optimistic," Marcus remarked drily. "There are other possibilities, you know."

"Name one."

Marcus drew a complete blank. When the silence had dragged on, and the reason become perfectly clear, he finally snapped, "That doesn't mean anything! Give me a few minutes, I'm sure I can think of something."

Garibaldi only grunted dubiously, and finished clearing his plate.

"I've got it!" Marcus said suddenly, snapping his fingers. "We crossed between universes, right? Well why not back in time, too? It's not like we didn't just finish sending Entil'zha a good thousand years back. Who says we haven't done it again?" He looked like he was going to say more, but a soft tone sounded through the cabin, followed by a stern voice.

"Picard to Chief Garibaldi."

Garibaldi nearly tapped his handlink out of sheer habit, but stopped himself quickly when he saw a grin split Marcus's face. "Garibaldi, go," he called out to the empty air.

If Picard was thrown by the irregular response, there was no trace of it in his voice. "I hope I'm not disturbing, Chief, but I'd like to ask you to join us in the conference room as soon as possible. There's something you should see. Something you all should see."

"Copy that, Captain Picard, I'm on my way." He hadn't needed to add the name, but he felt like he had to set _his_ captain apart. He stood, deliberately avoiding Marcus's quirked eyebrow. "I think he wants all of us there," he said unecessarily.

Nodding, Marcus said, "You go on ahead. I'll clean this up," he motioned to the pile of mostly empty dishes and serving trays, "and fetch Ivanova."

Running a hand over his scalp, Garibaldi let out a long breath. "Make it quick, Marcus. I have a feeling we're about to have the frying pan yanked out from under us."


	4. Interlude

Interlude

The vantage point was a good one, as such things go, with the widest, clearest view possible, and the smallest chance of the watchers being caught in the searching gaze of the targets of their observation. There were two of them, standing roughly side by side upon a relatively level granite shelf, half ringed by other, broken boulders and cracked rock. It was helpfully positioned near the crest of a long, low ridge that bracketed their target on the south, and tilted just-so, so that people on the ground would have had to pick them out against the treeline, while only able to see their shoulders and heads, assuming they were not blinded by the glare of the new risen sun. Of course, there was a slight risk that someone from the town below might choose to hike to the top of the hill, or come to investigate if they were spotted. But the odds of that were extremely low, and either would know of an approach long in advance.

The one dressed in only black was not impressed by what he was seeing, his companion holding more interest for him – few had the confidence to stand beside him, alone. But dutifully, and because he was never one to miss details, he did study the scene carefully. He was still not impressed. The town was small, in fact, now smaller than small, probably only remaining inhabited because the vital link to the outside continued to pass through. It had not always been that way, of course, six, seven years ago, it had been a hub of activity, the savior of a nation. Now, it's name was as close to cursed as made no difference, and the town was dying.

That would change. Very soon, they had both been told, though their vigil had as yet been unrewarded. Their role would only be to assist, but to remain ever in the shadows. One accepted that with absolute impassiveness, but the man in black was unsure.

"Are you quite sure this is the right place?" he asked, when there had still been no break in the monotony of drowsily droning insects, and quietly chirping birds. Black was a superb color for intimidation, for establishing authority, and for inviting like-minded followers; it was less suited to dealing with what was promising to be an unbearably sunny and humid morning.

The other, a taller man, never moved, and much to the first's disgust, seemed to be entirely comfortable in the heat, if not in the humidity. His voice was, as usual, low and gravelly, and absolutely, unswervingly sure. "These are the precise coordinates. We will wait."

Quirking a thin-lipped smile, the first man turned to look at his companion. "You of course realize, if M, as she calls herself, is as powerful as she claims, she would know the exact time they are going to arrive." He purposely allowed a long and significant pause to drag out, until the other turned away from the vista, to look at him. "Since she didn't tell us this presumably important information, I can only assume that she is not as powerful as she claims, or she is taking some perverse joy in making us wait."

"Or both," the other commented, his angular face never wavering from perfectly impassive. "Based on her method of contact with my vessel, however, I would be inclined to accept the latter interpretation as the most factually astute."

"You cannot imagine how delighted I am to hear you say that," the first replied, not bothering to conceal the scorn in his voice.

The other never blinked, as if the tone had simply passed him by as inconsequential. The only sign that he had even heard was the arching of one elegantly swept eyebrow. "I had reached that conclusion fourteen minutes ago. Furthermore," he continued, stroking the spade-shaped beard adorning his chin, "since it will not serve her purposes to alienate us, and is merely a display of control, I believe that there is a very high probability that what we are waiting for will occurr within the next seven minutes." He finished, regarding the shorter man with such an aloofly superior expression, it bordered on contempt without actually revealing anything.

Naturally, the first man found it to be a most infuriating expression, for exactly that reason.

Even more naturally, the other attempted to duplicate the effect as often as was seemly. The desired reaction found, he turned back to the matter at hand, precisely as a small black box clipped to his belt chirped once for attention. "That is the signal," he said unecessarily.

The man in black only grunted in acknowledgment. "Is everything in place?" he asked after a moment.

"Yes."

"Are you sure there is no way to mask their arrival?"

"Quite sure. Only my vessel has that capability, and it must remain in a powered-down state behind the moon to avoid detection. It is more powerful by far than they" – here his tone changed subtly, indicating that he was referring to a different _they_ – "would be prepared for, but is not capable of defeating all three of those starships at once."

"Even with the advantage of surprise?"

"Yes. I had considered it, but even with the most favorable assumptions, the probability of our success could be no greater than twenty-nine point three nine to one. If we are to move openly against them, we must first seperate them."

"Speaking of which, how long before they enter orbit?"

"At last reported distance, velocity and decceleration rate, in approximately thirty-six point four minutes."

"Approximately?" The first man's voice was dry. "Well then, perhaps we should begin."

If the one's was dry, the other's tone was absolutely Saharan. "Agreed. They will eventually detect us, of course. I intend for us to complete the objective before that happens."

The sun creeped higher into the sapphire sky. 


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Compared to the long and crowded conference the day before, when three crews, two Starfleet, one... formerly Earthforce, mostly, had tried to decide on a joint plan of action overseen by a riotious young god, this meeting was subdued.

Then, Picard had presided over what he was certain was the largest gathering his observation lounge had ever hosted. He had been lucky – captain's priviledge had granted him some modicum of elbowroom at the head of the conference table. The rest of the room was packed as tightly as a sardine can, with Picard's staff, Sheridan's staff, Ambassador Delenn and her aide, the Ranger, and Worf and his two senior lieutenants. On his arrival, Junior had created his own chair in the only empty corner of the room.

Now, it was significantly less crowded. Riker was on the bridge at the moment, and Delenn had apparently elected to remain on the White Star as its commander in Sheridan's absence, along with her aide. Picard wondered idly if he'd ever be able to make sense of Sheridan's convoluted chain of command. That left the observation lounge hosting only those who had to be the first to know what they had found.

Which, Picard reflected dourly, wasn't much. Data had been sweeping the planet with sensors constantly, looking for every scrap of information that would reveal itself. But he'd been unusually tight-lipped, having told Picard little more than they'd known an hour earlier during his conversation with Sheridan. He wondered if his second officer was attempting to experience the emotional impact of dropping a bombshell on them, but discounted it. Data might want to experience every emotion he had ever heard of, but he knew better than to withold urgently needed information.

Aside from the two captains, once again, Worf was present in his capacity as commander – _no, _Picard thought wryly, _stop mincing words _– in every sense of the word but rank, Worf was Captain of the Defiant. Data had taken up the seat beside Sheridan, while Beverly Crusher looked on from a shorter distance down the length of the table. Chief Garibaldi was also there, lounging back in the padded chair with every outward indication of nonchalance; though Picard expected that there was a great deal of awareness below the surface. Once again, he was struck by the notion that if this were his previous ship, Sheridan and his crew would look nothing less than dour in their stiff black uniforms – on this ship, they seemed to blend right in. What bothered him most, however, was that he wasn't certain if that were a good or bad thing.

Finally, the gentle hiss of the door announced the arrival of the last two members of their hastily convened council. Ivanova preceeded Marcus, who'd waved her through deferentially, then took up the open seat next to the one she claimed.

"Mr. Data," Picard said, opening the meeting without further ado, "if you please."

"Yes sir." The android picked up his padd from the table surface in front of him, and swivled in his seat to face the unobtrusive wall monitor tucked carefully alongside the starship display case. The others followed suit, watching the screen with unfeigned interest. Data pressed a combination of keys on the padd in his hand, and the monitor came to life with a soft glow.

He hesitated, as if unsure where to begin, before speaking. "In almost every respect, this version of Earth is identical to our own," he told them. "The first deviance we noted was in the composition of the atmosphere; there are significant levels of industrial pollution, concentrated over the European continent and eastern North America."

"What kind of pollution?" Sheridan asked sharply. Given the way his thoughts had been running earlier, he half expected to hear that it was nuclear fallout.

Data showed no outward reaction to the interruption. "As I was about to explain, the pollution is primarily hydrocarbons."

"Fossil fuels." Garibaldi was nodding now. When he saw the confused look he was getting from Ivanova, he elaborated, "Remember my motorcycle? I could only drive it after Lennier installed a Minbari power-source, because gasoline exhaust would gum up the atmosphere reprocessors."

"Precisely," Data agreed, betraying a hint of surprise. "However, from the composition of these hydrocarbons, I was able to determine that gasoline was not among the constituients. The source appears to be the combustion of poorly refined petroleum and anthracite coal, primarily."

Sheridan frowned. "Coal and oil?"

"Indeed." Data tapped a control, and on the screen, the blue-white marble of Earth appeared beside a list of readouts that only the android could read from the distance of the conference table. Then, the globe distended, stretching and spreading across the screen into a more easily read mercator projection. Another keystroke, and the obscuring cloud cover was swept aside, leaving only the stark green and brown shapes of the continents overlayed on a background of half a hundred shades of blue.

"Mr. Data," Picard asked, almost resignedly, "have we been pulled back in time?" Inwardly, he cringed from the reply, almost certain that he _knew_ what it would be. It often seemed as though his ship was a magnet for temporal anomalies. Offhand, he could not recall all of the ones he'd seen since taking command of the pervious Enterprise, more than ten years ago. He grimaced in recognition of the fact that not even James Kirk's Enterprise had had so many run-ins with time travel.

Data nodded, looking pained. Thanks to his perfect memory, in the space of a second or two, he had relived every similar experience in absolute detail, experiencing every emotion they created in him with a fresh perspective. "That is one of the possibilities I have considered, Captain," he said. "For the moment, with the information at hand, it also appears to be the most probable." He sounded regretful, and the mood seemed to transmit around the room instantly. With one exception.

"Ah ha!" Marcus crowed, leaning forward just enough to direct his comment past Ivanova, to a rueful Garibaldi. "Like I said, if Entil'zha could do it... I don't like to say 'I told you so,'" he went on with no hint of apology, "but..."

Never taking her eyes from the monitor screen, Ivanova spoke in a deceptively quiet tone. "Marcus, do you _want _to eat your own kneecaps?"

Marcus choked on on the "I", and got no further, cutting himself off with a bout of coughing.

Sheridan couldn't help a grin. He'd been worried about his friend and exec; since sending Sinclair back in time, she hadn't been herself, looking more withdrawn than he could recall having ever seen her. If she was recovering her usual crusty and pessimistic exterior, he guessed that she must be working through it in her own way. Like they said, 'time heals all wounds.' Of course, he'd ocasionally thought that the mysterious 'they' who came up with such peals of wisdom were completely full of it.

Picard hid his startled reaction by turning back to the screen, and studying it in exaggerated intensity. "Please, continue, Mr. Data."

With only a perfunctory nod, Data launched back into what Picard recognized as his "lecture mode," inputing several more commands into his padd. As they watched, a spiderweb of thin golden lines began to branch out from dozens of different focus-points. His memory almost immediately identified those points as the locations of what were on his Earth, major cities in North America and Europe. With some interest, he noted that on the former continent, few of the lines crossed the Mississippi, and those died off quickly past that barrier. 

"You will note the network of filaments," Data said, pointing out the obvious. "Our sensors have traced these as conduits of electrical transmissions, which converge in a density closely proportional to that of the local human population, in those areas where they are present at all."

"Electrical transmission? You're talking about powerlines," Garibaldi said, plainly curious.

"I do not believe so. The transmissions are occurring in pulses at irregular intervals, which would not be conducive to the delivery of electrical power."

Sheridan looked thoughtful, dredging his memory. The network Data was describing sounded a great deal like something he'd heard of before.

At an even great loss for an explanation, something else Data had said jumped out to Picard. "Data, out of curiosity, what is the planetary population?"

"According to our most recent scan, there are one point two-seven billion human life-signs."

Garibaldi snorted suddenly. "Looks like you may have been right, Marcus, much as I hate to admit it. At least we know now it's not our Earth. Not even Clark could have wiped out nine billion people in a few days."

"I believe we've already established that this is an Earth different than both of our own," Picard said amicably.

"Telegraph!"

"I beg your pardon?"

Sheridan knew he was grinning like an idiot, and didn't care. "Those lines you traced out on the map. Those are telegraph wires! If this isn't the late nineteenth century, it's one hell of a coincidence. That population figure clinches it." He cleared his throat self-conciously, when he realized he had suddenly become the center of attention in the room. "I've uh... got a thing for American history," he admitted.

Data cocked his head curiously. The human ability to make leaps of logic still confounded him. "That is the conclusion I was arriving at," he said in a tone so stiff, even Worf recognized his emotion chip at work.

Sheridan had the grace to look mildly abashed at stealing the android's thunder, but he couldn't keep it up long, in favor of a triumphant smile. _I hope those emotions of his are stable, _he thought suddenly. _I've never worked with a robot before, let alone an emotional one. I'd sure hate to start out by having my arms ripped out of my sockets._

"If we operate under that assumption," Picard stressed the last word, "we once again are left with the question of why we are here, and what it is Q wants us to fix for him."

"Good question," Garibaldi said. "If there's something we have to fix, and we don't know a thing about, where's the pipsqueak at?"

It took Picard a moment to realize that he meant Q's son. In truth, the same thought had been nagging him since the boy's last appearence, at the morning conference the day before. "I don't know," he said honestly. "I suspect that he takes after his father more than we believed, so expect him when we least want his presence. In any eventuality, we cannot allow ourselves to become reliant on his whims."

Data looked as though he were about to speak, but Sheridan brought his fist down on the table with an audible thump. "I agree. We may not have a choice about being here, but now that we are, we're gonna do it our way." He looked around the table slowly, fixing everyone with a determined eye, but saving pointed glances for his own people. "I wouldn't let Kosh jerk me around, and I'm not about to let some damned kid start now."

"Hear, hear!" Marcus cheered, punching one hand into the air. Suddenly subsiding as quickly as if he'd never moved, he added, "Now, just what exactly is it that we're planning on doing?" In return, he got a dark glare from Sheridan, who flushed angrily, realizing that he didn't have an answer for that.

"I believe I have located a disparity, assuming of course that this is the time period we suspect it to be," Data said calmly, breaking the thoughtful silence. "Seventeen point four minutes ago, ship's sensors detected a significant chroniton surge on the eastern seaboard of North America." On the screen, a small red blip flashed a steady beat in the appropriate location. "In our dimension, the exact location is on the outskirts of a town called Rivington, North Carolina."

"Never heard of it," Crusher said, finally seeing a chance to get involved in the conversation.

"Chroniton?" Marcus asked at the same time.

Picard briefly had the impression that Data would have liked to have an extra mouth, so as not to be limited to one reply at a time. Turning first to the doctor, he said, "That is unsurprising, as even in our own time, the population of the town is less than four hundred residents." Then to Marcus: "Chronitons are quantum particles, not dissimilar from gravitons, in that they are in fact subatomic tears in the fabric of space-time. Unlike gravitons, however, chronitons are only known to exist in proximity to significant temporal anomalies."

Seeing the same realization in everyone's faces, Picard cleared his throat, not wanting to jump to the first possible conclusion. "Mr. Data, can a chroniton surge like that be caused by a natural phenomena?"

"Negative." That one word shattered Picard's last hope that they weren't dealing with what they all feared they were dealing with. "Concentrations of chronitons have been observed in the area of naturally occurring temporal anomalies, but following this first surge, there was a succession of smaller pulses, occurring approximately every thirty-five seconds for eight point nine minutes. Such a pattern strongly indicates an artificial source."

"We're not the only time-travellers then," Marcus said rhetorically.

"It would seem that way," Data confirmed.

Picard considered the implications somberly, then nodded sharply, having come to a decision. Not, he knew, that there were many other options. "Needless to say, we can't afford not to investigate that. Logically, any variations in this time-stream would center around the only temporal rift on the planet. However," he cautioned, "Q is known for many things, and logic is not one of them. As suspicious as this looks, it may only be a diversion for the real problem."

Sheridan grunted assent, fixing what Ivanova called his 'evil-eye' on the small flashing red dot that pulsed away on the map. Despite himself, he couldn't resist the urge to go down and unravel the puzzle it representd with his own bare hands. "That gives us a starting point, at least," he reasoned aloud. "I guess that only leaves the question of how to proceede from here."

"Seems obvious to me," Ivanova said bluntly. "We go down there, find out who's doing it and why, and if we don't like their reasons, we blow them up so we can go home." 

Picard started to smile, until he saw her deadly serious expression. He'd thought she had been joking! More alarmingly, he noticed Worf nodding in obvious agreement with Ivanova's rash suggestion. _At least Beverly has the good sense to look horrified, _he thought. Interrupting before things got out of hand, he tried to put a diplomatic spin on things. "That may not be the most... wise course of action under the circumstances, Commander. We aren't that sure of our facts," he said placatingly. "In the event that this is meant to ocurr in this timeline, we could ruin their entire future with the best of intentions. Our first order of business should be reconaissence."

Leaning back in his chair, Sheridan fixed his opposite number with a calculating look. "Just what kind of recon are you talking about? There's only so much we can get sitting up here in orbit. If we intend on getting to the bottom of this, we're going to have to go down there, sooner or later."

"Which is exactly what I was about to suggest," Picard returned, smiling. It was so much easier to make these kinds of decisions when the people in charge were on the same wavelength. That chemistry was partly why he suspected why Will Riker had refused other command assignments in favor of remaining first officer on the Enterprise. "Suggestions?"

A gruff exhalation from Worf was a familiar sound when he prepared to speak. "Sir, I do not believe in coincidence. If there is a temporal rift present in that town, it is certainly part of the reason we are here. Transporting directly down presents far too great a risk. I recommend we set the beam-down point in a different location, and proceed on foot."

"I'm all for that," Garibaldi added. "If this is some other batch of time-travellers down there, I think we can be pretty sure that a bunch of tourists aren't visiting Nowhere, North Carolina. I hate having to say this more than once a week, but I don't like this. Something's rotten in Denmark, if you catch my drift."

They all did. Even Data, whom Picard secretly expected to point out that there were literally a great many things rotting in Denmark – and the rest of the world, for that matter. Blissfully, the android remained quiet.

Ivanova tapped one finger against the tabletop restlessly. "Can you zoom in on that?" 

A swift nod from Data was the only answer she got for the split-second before the map suddenly pulled out, focusing in on that flashing dot, until even the Carolina coast dropped off the right side of the screen. A second command brought up an overlay of borders and city names that she assumed was from the Starfleet Earth. "Our sensors show that with regard to the locations of population centers, our own geopolitical maps for the nineteenth century are ninety-nine point eight percent accurate," Data explained.

"Good enough," Ivanova replied, studying the image carefully. "There," she said, pointing. "If I'm reading that map right, most of that area is nearly wilderness. If we can't transport down to the source, why not pick a spot in the woods, and walk in from there?"

That suggestion, she noticed with some self-justification, earned a number of nods from around the table. All except for one.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Susan," Sheridan said trying to sound apologetic. "Granted, we're still assuming that I'm right about when in time were are. But if I am, just walking out of the forest isn't going to cut it. That's a small town, a very small town, and they tend to be pretty clannish." He smiled wryly. "I should know – I grew up in one. No, no matter how carefully we dress up for the role, we're not going to be able to help standing out, and gossip gets around fast."

There was a brief confounded silence, which was broken by Beverly Crusher's startling laugh. "I think the answer is pretty simple then." Her amusent trickled off into a nervous chuckle when no one said anything – only stared at her.

"Perhaps you should elaborate, Doctor," Picard prompted formally.

"If I'm following you correctly, the problem is that you can't send anyone into the town directly because their presence would be too obvious. At the same time, you can't start in a larger city, because none of us would fit in properly, and we could end up spreading news of our arrival before we could get anything done." She paused expectantly. "Well? Am I right?"

"That about sums it up," Garibaldi allowed grudgingly. "So what's your idea?"

Crusher shrugged demurely. "It seems to me that if we don't want to be noticed in a larger city, it could only work to our advantage if we were seen coming from one of those small villages." She pointed more specifically at the map. "For instance, if we beam down somewhere suitably small, say that town there," her finger traced across the small letters that spelled out "Nashville" as she spoke. "We won't blend in, but at least we can find out just how different this world is. From there, we can head to – " She paused, reading the label over the larger town under her gaze, "Rocky Mount, where we can find a way to the source of that time rift."

"That just might work," Sheridan mused in a soft murmer.

Picard added his own agreement, smiling at the doctor, who he now noticed had flushed proudly. "Good work, Beverly." All business again, he looked away, focusing on no one in particular. "That leaves the matter of who it is who is going to actually undertake this venture."

"Count me in," Crusher declared, cocking an eyebrow in Picard's direction, anticipating his protest. So his mouth was only half-open when she pressed ahead hurridly. "Don't even think about it, Jean-Luc." Her use of his first name in public – even if that public was a small collection of friends and people who didn't understand the significance of it – left him speechless, and she knew it. "This was my idea, and I'm not about to duck out of seeing it through."

Relieving some of the pressure from the doctor, Sheridan announced his own intention to go, over the half-hearted protests of his subordinates. "I'm going and that's that."

Ivanova looked rebellious, but knew there she was little she could do about talking him out of something once his mind was made up. Garibaldi merely heaved a resigned sigh, and shrugged. "In that case, I'm going too." His set jaw and determined expression brokered no dissent.

"Marcus, we could use you too. No one knows how to be sneaky like a Ranger." Sheridan turned his full attention on his target, until the other man blinked.

"Love to," Marcus retorted flippantly. "I'll have to clear my calander of course."

Gaping at the three of them, Ivanova looked disbelieving. "You're serious. All of you? You're really gonna do this?"

"Abso-fraggin-lutely." Sheridan grinned wolfishly, then turned to the map, the levity in his voice slipping away. "Besides, that's Earth down there. Even if it's not ours, when I find out who's trying to mess around with it, by God they're gonna hear about it the hard way." His tone went suddenly forboding at the end, and Ivanova stifled a mirroring grin. Whoever was going to end up a target of the Captain's ire was definately going to regret it.

"Since you put it that way," she said, trying to sound reasonable, "let's get going." She stuck her chin out, and her eyes flashed challangingly, an open dare for anyone to contradict her.

Sheridan winced, but he had to do it. "Sorry, not this time, Susan." Placatingly, he tried to offer a reason she would accept without biting his head off. "I can't bring the whole senior staff with me, you know that. There's only three of us, and one of us has to stay here and keep an eye on things from this end. Besides, it's too risky."

"And you going down there without me isn't." She waited for him to wince at the hit, then sighed loudly. "Fine. It's your call. But if you go and get yourself killed down there, God and all his archangels won't be enough to stop me from kicking your ghost's ass." Garibaldi started to laugh, and she whirled on him furiously. "And you. You're supposed to be watching his back, so if anything happens to either of you, you'd better pray you don't live any longer than he does!"

"What about me?" Marcus asked plaintively, feeling left out.

She scowled at him. "You don't even want to know."

"I would offer to accompany you, but I believe we can establish that these people have never met a Klingon before," Worf grumbled apologetically.

"I understand, Mr. Worf," Picard replied soothingly, allowing a touch of humor to color his tone. "I sympathize. I also don't think we can risk taking anyone else this time. A large crowd will draw far more attention than a few travellers. We learned that lesson the hard way aboard Babylon 5," he said with a self-depreciating chuckle, which turned into a laugh when Garibaldi folded his arms over his chest with smug grin. He turned then to Data, who was observing the conversation with keen interest. "I know you have all of that down, Mr. Data, so see about getting us period clothing, one female, and four male."

If there was any hesitation at the command, it didn't register in his voice or actions. "Aye sir."

"Five outfits?" Ivanova picked up on the addition first. "No offense Captain Picard, but I think your math skills are a little rusty. In my book, one doctor plus three bozos equals four." She already knew what he was doing, of course, but for a moment, tried to convince herself that the stiff, balding Starfleet captain was not really suggesting what she knew he was suggesting. "That's _four_ costumes you need, not five." One look at his expression confirmed everything, and she sagged. "It must be contagious," she muttered. She wasn't going to get any support from that direction, and from the looks she was getting from Worf and Data, she knew that even if the former agreed with her in theory, in practice, she was barking up the wrong tree.

Sheridan only shrugged. If he was insisting on going down, he could hardly complain if the other captain was equally willing.

Unwavering, Picard stood in a clear show of finality. "If there are no further questions?" It sounded like a question, but it wasn't, and all of them knew it. "Very well. Mr. Data, see to those disguises at once. We'll be departing from transporter room three in one hour." He tugged hard at the hem of his uniform and nodded sharply. "Dismissed."

As they began to file out through the doors on to the bridge, a thought ocurred to Picard. "Captain?"

Sheridan turned back, and the doors slid shut on the low-key bustle of the bridge. "Yes?"

"Captain, not to sound presumptuous, but just why are you doing this? No one is making you do this, and yet here you are, intent on putting your lives at risk. Why?"

With a wry grin, Sheridan dropped into the chair at the foot of the conference table, and considered his answer. "For one thing, I suppose, it's because I'm curious. Back on the Agamemnon, I used to pray for this kind of thing to happen... well, not _this_ exactly. But there was always that chance of finding something new; and every once in a while, we did." He sighed ruefully. "Ever since taking command of Babylon 5 though, it seems like all there is to it is paperwork. The fun and excitement are gone. Well, most of the time anyway," he corrected with a laugh, gesturing to their surroundings. "Jack Maynard's gonna turn fourteen shades of green when I tell him about this.

"But for another thing," he continued, more seriously, "when Delenn shared command of the Rangers in our sector with me, I promised her – promised them all – that we would draw a line against the darkness. I never meant just the Shadows. I meant all of it, everywhere... and everywhen, I guess." He shook his head forcefully. "If we're right about what's going on down there, how can I turn my back on it?" He let the thoughtful silence drag for a moment, before his face lightened abruptly. "So, that's my story, Captain. What about you?"

Picard had to smile at that. "I'm afraid my reasons are not quite as dramatic as your own," he said, pausing briefly when Sheridan barked laughter, "I'm an explorer, first and foremost. That's at least half of what Starfleet is all about. The other half is about protecting the Federation. Data has a theory, which unfortunately hinges on Q's honesty, that we are being moved about to places and times that are being tampered with."

"Like the second nuke, and probably those Shadow vessels at Babylon 4," Sheridan remarked thoughtfully.

"Indeed. Our problem is that if one of those areas tampered with is our own..."

"Your Federation might never have been formed."

Picard nodded an affirmation. "So you see," he said ironically, "we are in something of a quandary. None of us trust Q, but on the off-chance he is telling the truth, we can't afford not to act. Although in this case, we already know it is not our universe."

"If that's true, then even if this isn't _your_ past, it could easily be _ours_." Sheridan considered the implications with growing alarm. "I think we'd better go see how those outfits are coming along," he said with a new urgency.

Ashamed to admit that he hadn't even considered the problem from that angle, Picard could only nod.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The walk from the Defiant's bridge to the officer's quarters was short – only two decks down, in fact, and a short jaunt down the corridor. To Nog, it felt like five miles; had felt that way for the past week. At every turn, he expected a comment on the guilty look on his face, and shook with quiet relief every time no one noticed. _He will owe me a great deal, if I do not get drummed out of Starfleet first, _his mind grumbled. The next thought, as he left the turbolift and saw a crewman working in an access panel down the hall, was more basic. _Act natural. Nothing's wrong, nothing at all. I have nothing to hide. _He stumbled, tripping over his own shoe, and grabbed the wall for support. A furtive glance showed him that the technician had never looked up; even if he had, Nog reasoned, he'd probably have chalked up the chance stagger to the Ferengi's artificial leg.

When the doors to his spartan quarters hissed closed behind him, he sagged back against the wall, and let out a long, relieved breath. He scanned the room quickly, but saw nothing out of place – not that there was much for there to _be_ out of place. Quark would be driven to distraction by the sheer emptiness of the rooms, he knew, even with the knowledge that all of the quarters on the small starship were equally as sparse. But at the moment, it seemed to suit his mood.

It was quiet, a clichéd part of his brain whispered. Too quiet. He took a tenative step moving slowly towards the doorway of the small bathroom, praying he hadn't been found out somehow. He had rapidly become more aware than ever that Worf seemed to have eyes on the back of his head. Although he thanked the Blessed Exchequer of the Divine Treasury that it was Worf, and not Colonel Kira, who'd taken command. If Kira found out what he was doing, she'd have him scrubbing the outside hull with his lobes. Worf at least might understand. He hoped.

"Ok, start talking."

By his own estimate, Nog came perilously near to finding out whether the tritanium ceiling would stand up to the impact as his head collided with it. "Don't _do _that!" he implored in a forced whisper, turning his annoyance on the speaker, who'd just come out through a third doorway that led to a tiny office space.

Jake Sisko grinned at him, abashed. "Sorry about that, Nog."

"Quietly!" the Ferengi hissed.

"Relax!" Jake admonished loudly, throwing up his arms, "Personal quarters are all soundproofed, it's not like anyone will hear me."

Nog scowled. "All the same, keep it down. It's my lobes on the line here," he reminded his friend. "I knew I shouldn't have let you talk me into this."

"Oh relax," Jake repeated in a more subdued tone. "This hasn't exactly been a vacation for me either, you know. I've had to sleep on the floor for the past week, remember?" He shook his head softly, murmuring, "The things I do for a scoop..."

"These are _my_ quarters, and that is _my_ bed. Besides, I gave you a blanket, and a pillow," Nog said defensively.

Jake rolled his eyes. "One of your three pillows, and a blanket that was probably a dust jacket on a plasma converter in a past life."

Still defensive, Nog said, "My lobes need proper support at night. And might I remind you that this insane scheme was _your _idea? You are the one who said the conference on Bajor was as exciting as 'wet paint.'"

"Paint drying," Jake corrected automatically. "And yes, besides being only one of about fifty journalists covering that dull array of talking heads, this opportunity was too good to pass up. Think about it, Nog," he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up, "I could be the first human ever to interview Q!"

"You could also end up the first hu-mon with an imploded brain for even asking," Nog snorted dubiously. He leaned his head up against the wall above the replicator alcove. "Raktajino." He took the mug and wandered towards the bed pushed up against the opposite wall. "Admit it. This was a bad idea right from the start. When Worf throws us both out an airlock, I intend to last long enough to watch your head explode first."

"Don't be so negative," Jake admonished. Turning serious, he pulled out a thin folding computer, and called up his last entry. "So what have you got for me today? Even if I don't get the chance to talk to Q himself, this alone will make one hell of an article."

Sighing weakly, Nog collapsed backwards onto his bed, and stared at the ceiling, holding the mug upright over his chest while it cooled. "Where did I leave off?"

"With the party at Vic's place."

Nog looked up in surprise. "That far back?"

"You went on duty right after that, and didn't have time to stop back here."

Humming thoughtfully, the Ferengi ran through the events of his shift. Until they had reached the solar system, there had been nothing of interest, save the fact that he'd had the conn. He'd only been in Starfleet a few years, and it was still a major thrill every time he sat in the big center seat on Defiant's small bridge... even if it was the middle of the night. Once again the thought ran through his mind that the war was both a blessing and a curse – without it, he'd still be an ensign, probably one of dozens aboard some starship on the fringe of Federation space... but he'd still have his real right leg.

"You know we were on course for Earth?" He waited for Jake's perfunctory nod, then continued his narrative. "Let's see. Worf went on duty at oh-seven hundred. We reached Earth about ten-thirty this morning, without having spotted anything artificial, in orbit, or anywhere else in the system. Right after we entered orbit, Worf took off, said he was going to a staff meeting on the Enterprise." At Jake's suddenly eager expression, Nog shook his head. "I don't know what they discussed. All I know is that half an hour later, Worf returned, and said that they were sending an away team down from the Enterprise. By then, Doctor Bashir was on the bridge, so I overheard them talking. I gather we somehow ended up in Earth's past – "

"When?"

Nog shrugged, and sat up so he could take a gulp of his cooling coffee. "I don't know, they never said. Earth history was nevery one of my better subjects at the Academy anyway, and I have had enough personal experience with Earth's past not to care. But Worf hinted that Commander Riker was going to try to prevent Captain Picard from going with the team."

Jake snorted, remembering similar conversations his own father had had with Kira Nerys, Worf, and Jadzia Dax. He also remembered what the inevitable outcome was. "That should be an interesting scene," he mused.

*****

"When that away team departs, I will be with them, and that is final, Number One." Picard was growly truly angry now, but his executive officer wasn't relenting.

Riker scowled, or rather, deepened the scowl he already wore. "Captain, might I remind you that it is my duty to prevent you from taking unecessary risks? And whether you want to admit it or not, that is exactly what this is!" Underlying his words were a genuine concern for his captain and friend. It had ocurred to him more than once that ever since Picard had recieved the news of his brother's and nephew's deaths, that he had changed. It almost seemed to him that the captain was going out of his way to court death. First it had been Veridian Three – the captain had unhesitatingly given himself over as a hostage to recover Geordi from the Duras sisters. Picard was like that, had always been like that, Riker knew; but he couldn't help feeling that the Picard of old would have taken extra measures, perhaps an extra locater or three for the Enterprise to use to recover him from the surface of the planet.

Then there was the Borg attack. He'd been on the ride of his life in the Phoenix at the time, but Worf and Crusher had filled him in afterwards, about how Picard had nearly tried to make a last stand against the Borg. And finally, last year's incident at the Ba'ku planet – given his support, Riker knew it should have been him on the surface, and the captain where he blonged at the head of his ship.

Picard looked up again from behind his desk, which was dotted with padds full of relavent historical data. "Damn it, Will, despite what you may think, this is neither of those things. It is my duty as a Starfleet officer to investigate this situation and attempt to repair whatever damage may have been done to the timeline."

"With all due respect," Riker dragged out with equal heat, "your first duty is to this ship and this crew. You used to know that. Yes, you've overruled me before, but there's always been good reason. This time there is none, Captain. None at all." By then, he had his palms planted firmly on Picard's desk, and was leaning over it.

"There is every reason for me to be on this team. Your duty, _Commander_," he nearly growled, emphasizing the rank, "is to obey my orders. And right now, I am ordering you to get back on that bridge, while I go down to the planet." Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small voice told him he was getting nearly hysterical, but he ignored it. "I will not risk sending down an away team without a command officer."

Riker pulled back suddenly, staring in open reproach at his captain. "That's not it, and you know it. In the first place, Doctor Crusher is a full commander, and has passed the bridge officer's exam. At the worst, if that were really the issue here, you could send me instead. Secondly, we have three starships here, only two ranking captains, and I'd have to be insane to let the both of you go down on a dangerous away mission... sir." He quickly held up a hand to forstall protest. "I'm not finished. I've also been informed by a reasonably reliable source," – here, he thought back to his conversation with his opposite number on Sheridan's crew immediately after the meeting, and Ivanova's impassioned railing against the damnfool nature of captains in general – "that the risk on this mission increases with each additional member of the away team. You may be willing to put yourself into that kind of danger, but are you really willing to bet _their _lives on those odds?"

There was a long, dangerous, pause, but Riker could see he was winning by the softening around the captain's eyes. That tiny voice at the back of Picard's mind was slowly fighting its way to the fore, and lending its support to Riker's arguments. As if from a distance, he recognized that small, nagging voice as his own. His jaw clenched violently, and Riker winced when he heard grinding teeth, but at last, Picard looked up at him with a reasonable facsimile of his usual composure. "Am I really that bad, Will?" The question was soft, with a rhetorical edge. He meant it though – he'd promised himself he'd never again lose control the way he did when the Borg were taking over his ship. He still could hardly believe he'd actually descended into a violent physical display. Good God, he'd nearly hurt Lily.

Sensing the crisis point had passed, but still hardly daring believe he'd won, Riker grinned. "Yes you are."

Picard grunted softly, and shook his head in amusement at his own behavior. "Very well, Number One. Inform Data that he won't need to make a disguise for me, then notify the transporter room that I'll be down shortly to see them off."

"Aye sir," Riker replied, satisfied.

"Perhaps it is time I paid Deanna a visit," he grudgingly admitted.

"I think she'd appreciate that, sir," Riker said tactfully. The implied but unspoken, _we all will_, made Picard wince.

"After this has been dealt with, of course," he clarified.

Riker was unruffled. "Of course, sir. If you'll excuse me, I'll see to contacting Data now." He turned to leave, and was nearly at the doors when Picard's voice stopped him.

"Will?" Looking back, he saw Picard wearing an honestly grateful expression. "Thank you."

"Anytime, sir." Then he was moving back into the bridge, for the first time noticing the presence of Deanna – _must have come up here while I was talking to the captain _– who was studiously watching the planet spin gently on the viewscreen, showing no sign of the emotional hurricane she must have felt coming from the ready room. He looked a question at her, but she shook her head.

__

Not yet, Imzadi, she thought clearly, _he must ask for help before I can give it._

Not being a full Betazoid, she couldn't transmit the thought into his mind, but they were close enough that he understood her meaning anyway, and nodded acceptingly. But right now, there was another matter that demanded his attention, and he reached for his comm-badge to inform Data of the change in plan.

*****

After everything else, the departure was anticlimactic. Sheridan led the way to the transporter pads, and took his place at the fore of his small detatchment. He still didn't care much for the transporter, but it had become obvious that it was the only way; landing a shuttle in a barely industrialized society was plainly out of the question.

Standing in front of them, beside the crewman at the transporter console, Picard bade them all farewell, still dressed in his uniform. Sheridan hadn't realized that the other captain wouldn't be joining them until he'd seen that. On Picard's other side, Ivanova had folded her arms across her chest, and was glowering at him crossly.

Sheridan looked down, running through a mental checklist again, and making sure he'd forgotten nothing. He couldn't think of anything. He had his PPG concealed within an inner pocket of the buckskin vest he wore, and one of the Starfleet chevron pins was affixed to the loose white cotton shirt underneath. Of course, he'd slipped his handlink into one pocket of his leather chaps. It didn't have the range of the Starfleet badge, but he figured it couldn't hurt for he and Garibaldi to have another option open.

Behind him, he heard that same Garibaldi whisper in an aside to Marcus, "You think he's waiting for a proper send off from Delenn?" He felt his ears heat, but chose to ignore the comment, all the more so because it was true. Crusher was doing the same, he could tell, as she suddenly began fussing with the many buttons fastening her heavy, wide-bottomed dress.

"We're ready as we'll ever be," he said, trying to look as confident as possible. That was marginally more difficult now – he'd anticipated on having Picard's apparently considerable experience with similar situations to fall back on.

Picard nodded curtly. "Take care, Captain." His eyes switched over to his own department head as he added, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do, Beverly."

She grinned at him, and scolded, "Jean-Luc, you know me better than that."

"That's precisely what has me worried."

Trying unsuccessfully to hide his own amusement, Sheridan looked over to the transporter operator, and tugged on the brim of the wide leather hat he'd chosen. "Go ahead."

When nothing happened for a moment, Picard settled the issue with a single intoned word: "Energize."

When the last glimmers of the transporter effect had faded away, Ivanova stared at the empty alcove for a moment, lost in thought.

"Commander Ivanova?"

She turned at Picard's soft tone, standing straighter, looked over at him, with no trace of whatever might be going on behind her eyes. "Captain?"

Picard smiled and said, "I was about to go to the bridge. Would you care to come along? We can follow their progress from there."

"Actually," she said, recalling a question she had meant to ask earlier, "I was wondering if I could get a look at the inside of the Defiant." Partly, it was genuine curiosity about a ship that looked like the White Star as designed by Earthforce, but mostly it was because she knew that trying to follow Sheridan's progress would drive her mad. They'd beamed down almost in the middle of nowhere, so it would be several hours at least before anything interesting happened, and all of that time she would be chewing her fingernails to stubs in tense expectation if she didn't have something else to distract her.

"I'll have to contact Commander Worf, but I think that can be arranged."

*****

The four newest arrivals on planet Earth almost instantly wilted in the opressive heat. Their clothing drooped and clung to them almost as quickly.

"Good God!" Marcus exclaimed, tugging at his collar. "We're all so smart, sitting around up there that we forgot to ask for a bloody weather report!"

"Speak for yourself. You're only wearing about twelve fewer layers of clothes than me," Crusher pointed out sarcastically, gesturing at her own attire.

Garibaldi chuckled at the both of them, fingering the brim of his own leather hat. Like Sheridan, he was also dressed in mostly leather. They both knew that neither of them could pass as a native Southerner, but if they appeared to have come from out west, their accents might draw less attention. "Oh, come on, Marcus, where's your sense of adventure?"

The Ranger harumphed. "Dripping down my back, I think."

Sheridan tuned out their words as the three of them began to argue over just which one of them was the most uncomfortable, and who's outfit was the most stifling; instead, focusing his attention on their surroundings. That wasn't much at first, as his eyes tried to adjust to the bright sunlight. He couldn't remember having ever thought mere daylight was so blinding, but then, he hadn't actually seen the sun in the sky since taking command of Babylon 5.

Blinking to bring the world into focus, he realized that they were standing hip-deep in thick green underbrush. Trees surrounded them, their foliage creating dappled patterns of light and shadow across everything he could see. The sun was high in the sky, but he had the indefinable sensation that it was before noon. _Must be a few hours time difference between here and the ships. _"Hey," he called out, breaking into the small debate the others were holding. "I know we were supposed to get dropped somewhere outside that town, but why in the middle of the woods?"

Crusher pursed her lips, finally taking a good long look at their environment. "I don't know. It could be they spotted some locals too close to the road we want to take. Wait a moment." She reached into a large satin handbag, and pulled out an incongruous piece of technology. The tricorder hummed and whirred, then beeped twice. "The road is about eighty meters in that direction," she told them, pointing, even as her other hand returned the scanner to the bag. On the outside the bag might look entirely innocuous, but the contents would be unimaginable to anyone from this era. 

"Well then," Marcus said, waving his silk derby across his face like a fan, "shall we?" He started out in general direction Crusher had indicated, and they all followed, smashing through the undergrowth like a herd of cattle.

Sheridan grinned at the thought. _That's something I'm properly dressed for, at least._ As it was, he and Garibaldi had far less trouble pushing through clinging branches and the occasional thorny shrub. The doctor, he noticed, wisely followed behind the two of them closely, lifting her many rustling skirts as high as possible over the tangle of weeds and roots on the ground. She still nearly lost her very wide straw sunbonnet in a few places, but she made better progress than Marcus, who was struggling through on his own, his more formal clothes not taking the rough treatment well. And if they'd thought they were hot before... Worse, were the insects that began to descend in small clouds, making themselves noticed buzzing past ears, landing in or near eyes and nostrils, and having a feast on any bare skin presented to them. 

For that problem at least, Marcus had the answer, pulling a silver cylinder from some pocket secreted somewhere on his dark civilian jacket, and spraying a fine mist across himself. "You know me, I like to be prepared."

"I thought that was the Boy Scouts," Garibaldi grumbled.

Marcus ignored him, grinned apologetically at Doctor Crusher, and explained, "I got it from sickbay. Your Nurse Ogawa said it was supposed to be very effective on all manner of these nasty little buggers."

It took only a few moments of cajolery, threats, and promises to get him to share, and they continued on in just the tiniest bit more comfort.

They were all still desperately relieved to finally come upon the road they were looking for, simply because it meant they were out of the woods. _At least literally, _Sheridan mused.

The road itself was barely worth the name, a trail of hard-packed earth, so dry it was nearly white, neatly reflecting the blazing sunlight right into their eyes. Ruts from the passage of innumerable wagons and horses left it with trecherous footing. Sheridan pulled the brim of his hat as far down over his eyes as possible, and Garibaldi muttered something wistful about sunglasses.

Marcus didn't say anything, staring as he was into the cultivated field on the other side of the road. Returning his level gaze with a sidelong one, a dark face peeked out from between the growing corn shoots below, and the ratty straw hat above. Realizing he was being watched, the face suddenly ducked below the level of the corn again, but not before Marcus had pointed it out to his companions.

"Slaves." Sheridan nearly growled the word. Unconciously, his hand clenched into a furious, impotent fist at his side. "At least we can narrow down the time period then," he said forcing emotion to the back-burner. "This has to be before the end of the American Civil War," he concluded. "After the war, slavery was abolished, and most of the big plantations split their holdings, and turned to sharecropping."

"Well we aren't going to find out much just standing around here," Crusher broke in pragmatically. She jerked her head, gesturing down one direction on the beaten track, and said, "Our first stop is that way, about a mile down this road."

Unlike the tangled scramble through the forest moments before, the walk along the so-called road was actually pleasent. Insects chittered and buzzed in the trees and in the tall grass at the roadside, but thanks to Marcu's forethought, were not the nuisance they had been. The only drawback they found was that the road often meandered out of the soothing shade of the trees, and directly into the scorching sun. Even that was forgotten soon, lost in the easy rhythum of simply walking.

Inhaling deeply, Sheridan found himself smiling despite the dark thoughts of a moment ago. "Do you know how long it's been since I've actually been able to just walk outside like this?"

"Don't even start with me," Garibaldi muttered. "I've been stuck on B5 almost two years longer than you."

Marcus laughed at them both – he'd rarely been to Earth before, and found himself enjoying it immensely; but unlike them, he'd had plenty of time to wander outside on a planet, even if that planet was Minbar, during his training.

No more was said for several minutes, the four of them watching the scenery rolling past as they moved, the forest bordering the road on their right side, and the well-tended fields on their left. Those fields abruptly ended as they rounded one turn, giving way to a row of large oak trees, which were replaced themselves with more forest on the left. The air was still humid and stiflingly hot, but at least the interlocking branches of the trees to either side provided enough cover to block out the worst of the sun's heat.

At last, struggling up the last breathless few feet of a long incline, they were looking down a shallow slope, towards a sleepy hamlet nestled amid the trees and fields.

"That's the place," Crusher said between gulps of warm, sticky air.

"Doesn't look like much," Garibaldi noted sourly. With a self-concious grin, he looked around at his companions, who were taking a breather now that their destination was in sight. "Oh come on, living in space couldn't have made you all so soft." He puffed out his chest, and thumped it with one fist. "It was only a mile! I'm barely warmed up."

"You want to be _more _warm?" Marcus asked sardonically, wiping his brow on one already soaked sleeve.

Crusher cleared her throat. "I'll have you know I'm in excellent shape. But you try a mile in this costume."

"Ignore him," Sheridan told her, aiming a dark look at his security chief. "He was a ground-pounder. It'd take him a good five miles in that dress to wear him out." When Garibaldi grinned again, he added, "And if he doesn't figure out when to keep his mouth shut, he's gonna try it."

"Spoilsport."

"Captain?" Marcus was taking in everything he could see, which from their elevated position, was primarily rooftops. He could tell the town was a small one – he figured that the captain could probably hit a baseball from one end to the other. Well, that might be an exaggeration. But not much of one. What caught his attention though, was a piece of cloth flapping in the stale, weak breeze, from the top of a square redbrick edifice.

Sheridan turned to look at the Ranger. "What is it, Marcus?" In return, he got only a pointing finger, though the target was unmistakable.

"Is that an American flag?" asked a squinting Garibaldi.

Crusher chewed her lower-lip in thought. "It doesn't look like the one I saw a few years ago," she said, not adding that it had been on the space-suit of a three-hundred year-old corpse, lying in a bed at a casino that didn't really exist. "That one had fifty-two stars and thirteen stripes, but this could be an earlier version."

Searching his memory, Sheridan shook his head slowly. "I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that the American flag always had thirteen stripes. This one has only three stripes, and I think that's twelve stars. No." Now he shook his head more forcefully as recognition took hold. "That's the Stars and Bars." He turned, fixing them all in a somber stare. "Gentlemen, and lady, welcome to the Confederate States of America."


	7. Chapter 6

Disclaimer:  This and the following chapters take place in the context of Harry Turtledove's "Guns of the South."  None of the characters are mine (in fact most are historical), and as with the case of Star Trek and Babylon 5, I'm just doing this for fun, no copyright violations are intended, so please don't sue me. ;)  I tried to keep spoilers for "Guns of the South" to a minimum while making things understandable to people who aren't interested in the book, but if you want to read that book, you should do it before you read this.  As always, comments, criticism, and suggestions are welcome.

Chapter 6

Watching his lone customer through thick lenses that did little but magnify his owlish appearance, Raeford Liles tallied up the purchases in his head.  "Anything else?" he asked helpfully.  If he could sell anything else to his apparently generously spending patron, he would.  As it stood, this visit alone would net him more money than he'd seen the rest of the week combined.

Dempsey Eure grunted, setting down a fifty-pound sack of feed on the floor beside the steel plowshare, new pair of boots, and two identical sacks, also of feed, that he'd picked out.  He stopped to wipe the stinging sweat out of his eyes, and took one more considering look around the inside of the store.  "No, I reckon that's everything, Mr. Liles."

Liles made a show of leaning over the rough hewn wooden countertop, and working out a price in his head, though he'd already done so.  "Sixteen dollars Confederate, even," he pronounced.  He paused, expecting a haggle, but none seemed to be forthcoming.

"Seems fair enough," Dempsey said, pushing his black felt hat back on his head, until the tall feather atop it brushed against the ceiling.  He grinned at the older shopkeeper, and said, "Did pretty well for myself last season," as he withdrew a billfold from his pocket, and peeled off one twenty-dollar note.

"I'd say so," Liles replied, trying not to look envious.  He accepted the bill, then dug under the counter for a moment, coming up with four one-dollar notes.

"Say what you will about Henry, but that Yank knows what he's doing.  He made a few suggestions for that crick back behind my place, and now I've got plenty of water for the fields, no matter how dry it gets 'round here."  Liles only grunted noncommittally, and Dempsey shrugged.  "Oh, almost forgot, got a copy of today's paper?"  That was something of a running joke – by the time the newspapers reached Nashville, they were usually a few days old.  He slid a pair of silver half-dimes across the counter, while the storekeeper checked his stock.

Coming up from behind the counter with a copy of the _Richmond Examiner, Liles pocketed the money and handed it over, even as he shifted at the sound of the opening door, the better to see the new arrival.  He grinned toothily when he did.  "Morning' Nate."_

Pushing the door closed behind him, Nate Caudell pulled off his hat, and shook his head.  "God almighty, it's worse in here than it is out there," he said, stabbing a finger behind him at the too-bright haziness of Nashville's town square.  "Good morning, Mr. Liles," he greeted, almost as an afterthought.  Then he saw the other man.  "Dempsey?  That you?  How in the hell are you?"

Dempsey Eure smiled as he shook his friend's hand.  "It's been a while, Nate.  How are things with you and Mollie?"

"We're getting by.  Got our own place up near the schoolhouse now.  I'd ask you to come by for supper, but neither of us is any good at cooking anything more complicated than our good old Confederate cush."  He affixed as much horror as he could on to that last word, and Dempsey Eure shuddered at the memory of that barely warm, sticky mash of old cornmeal and bits of whatever meat could be scrounged up in the winter camp of the Army of Northern Virginia.

"I hope you can find it in you to forgive me if I don't take you up on that offer," the other man said.  As a schoolteacher Nate Caudell may have been the most educated underofficer in their whole company – Company D of the 47th North Carolina regiment, The Castalia Invincibles – during the war.  But he never could cook worth a damn in the opinion of every other sergeant in their cabin.  

Caudell grinned.  "Oh, I think I could do that, Dempsey.  As it is, Mollie and I try and get ourselves invited over to Henry's place for supper as often as we can."

With a chuckle, Dempsey nodded to the small stack of purchases he's made.  "Well, I'd best be loading this stuff up.  Lucy goes up the wall when she thinks I've been out drinking.  Give my regards to Mollie."

"I'll do that, Dempsey," Caudell replied.  "If you can spare me a moment to pick up the new readers I ordered, I'll help you load all of that into your wagon.  That is yours out front?"

"Yep, that's mine, all right.  Thanks Nate, that's real kindly of you," Dempsey said gratefully, stooping to lift one of the sacks.  Even as he was moving towards the door, Raeford Liles, who had overheard the entire conversation, was pulling three bound readers from a back shelf.  

Caudell had barely reached for the coins in his pocket when he heard his friend let out a startled noise.  Looking back, he saw that Dempsey Eure had stopped in his tracks, and was staring, open-mouthed, out the small dirty window beside the door.  He dropped a silver half-dollar on the counter, and grabbed the books in one motion, turning back to his friend.  "What is it?"

"Take a look out there, Nate.  What do you make of that bunch?"

Walking over to the matching window on the opposite side of the door, Caudell saw immediately what Dempsey was talking about.  The four people walking across the small square directly towards Raeford Liles' general store looked like no other group of people he'd ever seen; at least not outside of Richmond, and then only during the Grand Review of the Confederate armies.  Two of them looked as though they spent most of their time wrangling cattle out on the Texan range, although it struck him odd that their garments appeared to be brand new, but were not the more formalized wear that most wealthy land-barons seemed to prefer.  Following a short distance behind those two, were a man and woman, both of whom were finely dressed – far more so than could be expected in a town like Nashville.  They were all the more strange because the layer of fine white dust on their clothes spoke of a long walk on an unpaved road.  Nate thought it odd for that;  people dressed like that tended to be able to more than afford a coach fare.

"What are you two gawking at?" Liles asked irritably.  He was frequently irritable, so they both ignored his tone.

"You're about to find out," Dempsey said, suddenly scooting backward from the window.  He'd forgotten that he was still holding a heavy sack of feed in his arms, and quickly dumped it back in front of the counter, along with the rest of what he'd bought.  Then he tried to look busy, burying himself in the newspaper he'd dropped on top of the pile.  Nate abruptly found something in one of his school readers that required his complete attention.

Liles was the picture of frustration, but it was short-lived, as the front door opened, and four people crossed the threshold.

With only the barest hint of trepidation, Sheridan took a deep breath, pushing open the wooden door beneath the hand-painted sign that identified the building as "Liles' General Store."  The room beyond was dim compared to the sunlight outside, but it didn't take long for his eyes to adjust.  He moved aside so the others could follow him in, and looked around, gratified to see that there were only three people inside.  Recalling the curious glances they had attracted while walking through the town itself, he was now convinced that the fewer people they encountered, the better.

Two men stood just inside the entrance, one on either side by the windows.  Both were intently reading, a newspaper and some kind of paper-backed book, respectively.  They were so engrossed by what they were reading, they never looked up.  That's _too engrossed, a small, paranoid part of Sheridan's brain insisted.  He forced the feeling down, but noticed that Garibaldi's right hand had drifted down towards his belt, where his PPG was concealed; obviously his paranoia was just a little stronger than his captain's._

"What can I do for you gents?"  The store's proprietor – Mr. Liles, Sheridan concluded logically from the sign outside – was looking at them with undisguised curiosity, but he didn't seem to be suspicious of them, and Sheridan saw Garibaldi relax imperceptibly.

"I was wondering if you've got a newspaper.  We've been ah… traveling, and haven't kept in touch with recent events, so you know…"

"Yeah, I got a couple of papers left," Liles said diffidently.  He didn't move, waiting expectantly to see some money first, Sheridan realized.

He obliged the storekeeper, reaching into a trouser pocket for the handful of period coins he'd put there back on the ship.  Doctor Crusher was carrying most of their funds in her handbag, since it was all in the form of gold and silver coins, safely stamped and dated as being from 1850, and the United States.  Data's attention to detail had been exacting, but that had been assuming they knew what they were getting in to, which of course they hadn't.

Liles fixed the shiny gold dollar Sheridan dropped on the wooden counter with a fishy glare, but accepted the coin after a cursory examination, producing change from somewhere underneath the back of the counter.  The newspaper followed, and Sheridan nodded gratefully, pocketing the smaller coins.  Odds were good that they wouldn't tell him anything more than the newspaper could, but just the same, he slipped them into a different pocket from the money he'd brought.

Behind him, Sheridan could hear his companions wandering about the small store, ostensibly browsing the wares.  He folded the paper under one arm, nodded to the shopkeeper, and motioned the others to follow him out the door.  The light within the building wasn't conducive to reading – which once again raised his concerns about the two men in the store.  The lighting was bad inside, no question;  so if they weren't truly reading, just what were they doing?  Did they suspect anything?

"What does it say, Captain?" Garibaldi asked, once the door had closed behind them.

The question bringing his attention back to the more immediate matter, Sheridan put his paranoia on hold, and looked down at the newsprint in his hands.  "With any luck," he told them, "this paper should have some news on the war, so we'll know what to expect.  We can't find out why it is we're here until we know what's…"  He hadn't even realized he'd trailed off.

"Uh, Captain?  What is it?"  Garibaldi shifted uncomfortably when Sheridan didn't respond, instead, flipping through the pages rapidly, as if searching for something.

"I don't understand it," Sheridan said.  His anxiety was palpable, and remained that way until suddenly his roving eyes located what he was looking for.  Letting out a relieved sigh, he traced his finger to the text underneath a bold black headline that read simply, "War."  He couldn't understand why the story would be on page twelve, but he shrugged.  His relief lasted only two sentences into the article, and then his veins turned to ice.  On a whim, he flipped back to the front page, and found the date.  "Oh hell," he muttered tersely.  _26 June, 1871__._

Garibaldi tapped his foot impatiently, watching the captain's antics, but when he saw the look on the other man's face, he shivered despite himself.  _What the hell is scaring __Sheridan__ like that, he wondered.  And then the door behind them opened squeakily, and the two men who'd been reading inside came out into the sunlight, each carrying a heavy burlap sack.  Instantly, all his attention was focused on them, and he felt himself unconsciously bristling as he noticed the surreptitious glances they were stealing as they loaded the sacks into the wooden bed of a small wagon._

"What the hell do you make of that, Nate?" Dempsey Eure asked, the moment the door had shut behind the four strangers.

Caudell shook his head, closing the reader, and tucking it under his arm.  "I don't know Dempsey."  He frowned thoughtfully.  "I just don't know.  There's something… off… about those people."  Something was tickling the back of his mind, but he couldn't place the feeling and dismissed it with another shake of the head.  "I can't put it any better than that."

"They can be damnyankees for all I care," Raeford Liles put in with a cackle, holding up the gold dollar.  "They're suckers, and they've got money to spend."

"Damnation, Mr. Liles, don't you ever think about anything else?" Dempsey said, sounding humorously disgusted.  The odd combination left him with an expression that looked almost painful.  Liles only cackled the louder.

But it was that gold coin that caused something to click into place in Caudell's mind.  _Strange accents, strange clothes… they pay with gold, and they must have enough of it, if they didn't say anything about Lile's prices… and they just look wrong, somehow, like they don't belong.  "Just like the Rivington men," he thought, not realizing he'd spoken until Dempsey turned a startled gaze on him._

"What?  You can't be serious, Nate.  Marse Robert has all them bastards – all the survivors, at any rate – locked down tighter'n Mr. Lile's money box, and that's the Lord's own truth!"  Dempsey looked stunned, and even a little afraid.

Caudell couldn't blame him, and he knew far more of the truth than his friend.  He suspected that the only people who knew as much as he did about the Rivington men were Mollie and President Robert E. Lee.  "I know that, Dempsey," he said.  "I don't think they're Rivington men either.  For one thing, one of them is a woman," he pointed out with a grin.  "Can't remember ever seeing any Rivington women during the big fight.  But these people are different too.  They don't have the same accents, and they aren't wearing those splotchy uniforms."

"They ain't from Rivington either, Nate," Dempsey said suddenly.  "When I first saw 'em out the window here, they were coming this way down Washington Street from the west side of town.  Only way into town on that side is the Castalia Road."

"Really?"  Caudell hummed, frowning.  "That's a good twenty miles from Castalia, and they sure didn't walk that whole way since dawn.  They aren't dirty enough for a march like that either."  At that, Dempsey laughed, recalling that feeling from far too many such marches.  "But they are too dusty to have taken a coach.  Maybe I oughta go up and drop by Henry's place tonight," he said, shaking his head.  "He's only about five miles up that road from here, and I think he, or someone working for him, would have noticed people who looked like they do walking past his farm."

Dempsey Eure looked confused.  "What'll that prove?  It won't mean anything if Henry didn't see anything.  And there's no towns between here and Castalia, so where else could they have come from?"

"I don't know.  It won't really prove anything, I guess… hell I might just be spittin' wind here.  But if these people do have something to do with the Rivington men, we'd better find out fast as we can."

"Cain't hardly argue that," Dempsey allowed.  "But how d'you figure we go about doing it?"

Nate Caudell shrugged.  "Don't know that either.  Anyway, how's about we start loading up that wagon of yours before Lucy calls out the army to track you down.  We'll think of something while we work."

Chuckling, Dempsey nodded, and reached for the heavy burlap sack he'd put down a few moments earlier.  "All right then, as you say."

They had only gone a few feet into the sunshine outside when they realized that the four strangers were still standing around, just yards away, clustered around the tall leather-clad man who'd paid for the paper inside.  They weren't speaking, and seemed to be regarding their evident leader with expectant demeanors.  Almost as soon as the door closed behind them, the second man who looked like a genuine cowboy abruptly turned and stared at them with hard, cold eyes.  Holding off a shiver at that nearly predatory expression, Caudell helped Dempsey heave the sacks into the bed of the wagon, then went back into the store for more.

The door swung open behind them while they were gathering the last of Dempsey Eure's purchases.  Neither looked up as footsteps thumped on the floorboards behind them, but in a moment, they heard the voice of the tall cowboy again.

"Excuse me, but me and my… associates are trying to get to Rocky Mount.  Can you tell me the fastest way to get there?"

Raeford Liles blinked up through his thick glasses, and broke into a wet chortle.  "That'd be by coach, and the next one doesn't leave 'til five o'clock, officially."

The other man winced, but wasn't deterred.  "And unofficially?"

"Seven-thirty if the Lord hisself came down here and drove it," Liles said, cackling again at the stranger's reaction.  Then he forced himself to feel a pang of mercy.  "It's not the same thing, but I reckon you could talk to Dempsey here about hitchin' a ride.  He lives about four miles down that road."  Turning to a visibly startled Dempsey Eure, he went on, "Ain't that right, Dempsey?"

"Uh, well yeah, I mean, my place is down that way some."  He shot a pleading look at Caudell, who looked momentarily thoughtful.  If these people really were Rivington men, they were the last human beings on Earth who he'd want to travel with.  The suddenly calculating look on his friend's face made his heart sink.

"Why don't you go ahead and give these folks a ride, Dempsey?" Caudell suggested pointedly.  "At least as far as your place.  It's still a fair walk, but there'll be plenty've light left.  Besides, if your supper invitation is still good," – Liles made a surprised noise, and Caudell quelled him with a sidelong glance – "It'll be a little bit before I can go round up Mollie and Henry.  I know he's eager to see just how you've gone about doing what he suggested."

Dempsey caught on almost immediately, and the undertones combined with an invitation he hadn't extended, told him that Nate, Mollie, and Henry Pleasants would be doing more than just dropping by for a meal.  He still didn't care much for the idea of driving those miles with four potential Rivington men in his wagon, but he could see the need.  They weren't likely to get a better opportunity to keep an eye on them.  "That's all true enough, Nate," he conceded.  He turned to look squarely at the stranger, who, he noticed with some surprise, looked to be mulling over some idea of great import, or maybe deep-rooted shock.  Either way, he didn't appear to be paying overmuch attention to the conversation happening around him.  "If you're still interested, mister," Dempsey told him, "I can take you about four miles down towards Rocky Mount.  Can you be ready to leave soon?"  To his surprise, the stranger smiled warmly.

"That'd be great.  Name's John Sheridan.  And we're ready to go as soon as you are," he said, extending a hand.

Dempsey took the hand with a firm shake, smiling despite himself.  None of the Rivington men he'd met, and admittedly that had not been many, were so friendly, and none that he knew of had such an ordinary name.  Realizing he was being impolite, he said, "My name's Dempsey Eure."  Determined not to end up going this alone, he deliberately added, "And this here's Nate Caudell.  He's the schoolmaster 'round here."  His point made, he continued, "Anyhow, just let me get this last bit loaded up, and we'll be on our way."  

The "last bit" consisted of two heavy burlap sacks, and Sheridan shrugged.  "Works for me," he said, heaving one of them across a broad shoulder.  

It was only then Nate Caudell realized just how tall the man was.  The only other people of similar height he'd ever seen had been Abraham Lincoln and the other Rivington men.  His eyes narrowed further when Sheridan leaned out the door, and with a crisp air of authority at odds with his apparel, called out to his companions.  "Michael, get in here and get this last bag out of here."  The burly hard-eyed man who'd been staring at them before was the one who responded to that implied command, grabbing the last sack, and carrying it out to the wagon.

_He is – or was – a soldier, Caudell realized.  It didn't surprise him, after what he'd seen from the Rivington men, but the rest of it didn't add up.  __They stand out, and don't seem to realize just how much.  They, at least those two, are probably soldiers, and they seem to have plenty of gold.  Uncannily like the Rivington men.  On the other hand, I've never seen any Rivington man wearing anything but those spotty clothes, and never in the company of English dandies and women.  So just what in the blazes are they, where – or when, his mind added, as an image of the impossible book Mollie had shown him years ago intruded unbidden into his thoughts, – __did they come from, and why are they here?_

The moment the two of them had left the building with the seed bags, Caudell rounded on Dempsey.  His friend knew nothing about the book with the impossible publishing date, and hadn't been close enough to the final stand of the Rivington men to have heard enough to wonder, but knew just enough to be very worried.  "Listen, Dempsey, you make sure it takes as long as it can for you to get home.  Yeah, I know Lucy'll complain, but this is important now, you hear?  Take it slow, delay them 'long as you can there.  I don't want to get Mollie involved, but she'll kill me if she finds out –"  That earned a chuckle from both Dempsey and Liles, who had only a foggy understanding of what was going on, "– so I'm gonna go get her, then get over to Henry's place at the double-quick, and get him.  The only thing in Rocky Mount worth mentioning is the railroad, so they must be trying to get somewheres else.  We need to know where that is, and why."

Dempsey grinned lopsidedly at that.  He had had a well-earned reputation as the slowest sergeant in the regiment when it came to getting from one place to another.  "Reckon I can manage that, Nate.  I'll make sure there'll be some grub ready, too.  But only if you hurry like all the devils of hell are on your heels."

"Don't you worry about that," Caudell said sincerely.  Then grinning, added, "Once Henry hears about this, you can bet we'll be there yesterday, earlier if he can figure out a way to fly us there.  Remember, he's got even more reasons to want another crack at 'em than we do."  That much was also true.  Henry Pleasants had watched his entire regiment be chewed apart thanks to the weapons provided the Confederacy by those same Rivington men, and then they had not only tried to assassinate the new president of his adopted country and start their own uprising, but had done so with weapons even he couldn't fathom.  As an engineer, he saw that alone as a personal affront.    

"I hope you're right about that," Dempsey allowed dubiously, "I surely do.  Because if we're not wrong about these folks, we're gonna have to stop them from doing whatever mischief they're here to do, any way we can.  And after the last time, I'm not looking forward to that, and that's the truth."


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"So, planning on filling us in sometime?" Garibaldi asked quietly as the rooftops of Nashville receded behind their jouncing transport.

Sheridan made a startled sound, looking up sharply.  "Huh?"  He'd been buried in the newspaper in his hands from the moment they'd gotten settled in the back of the small wagon, absorbed by the simple everyday things he was reading there.  The fact that they were completely impossible things though, that added an element of interest to even the most mundane story.

"I said, do you plan on filling us in?  You look like you've seen a ghost… no, a whole line of ghosts, doing the conga."

With an amused grunt, Sheridan folded the paper, and set it down next to him.  "You could say that," he allowed, not looking at Garibaldi, but rather past him, as if still lost in thought.  "Just how much do you know about this time period?"  His voice was soft – it wouldn't do to have their topic of conversation overheard by their erstwhile driver.  He included Crusher in his words, nodding to where she was squeezed in between two large sacks opposite them.

"Not much," Garibaldi admitted in a similarly low tone.  "Ancient history was never one of my better subjects back in school."

Crusher shrugged.  "I know a little bit more than that.  I know what San Francisco was like around 1890 – even got a chance to meet Sam Clemens."  She smiled wistfully in recollection, then noticed Sheridan's suddenly piercing stare.  "Don't ask," she cautioned with an upraised hand, "it's a very long and confusing story.  Back to the matter at hand though, you said earlier that you thought that this was the Confederacy.  If that's true, the war must be north of here."

Sheridan managed a half-hearted chuckle at that.  "Oh, there's a war up north all right."  He handed her the newspaper, pointing out the article that had so stunned him back at the general store, saying, "Read that."

She did, trying to focus on the words despite the rough bouncing of the wooden wagon-wheels over rutted, unpaved road.  It didn't take long before she saw exactly what he'd meant.  "This can't be right," she finally said, looking back up at him with a frown.  She allowed her voice to come out a little louder than before, since at the front of the wagon, Marcus had suddenly struck up a timely conversation with the driver.

"Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"

Crusher flinched at Garibaldi's sudden question, her nerves on edge from the chilling thoughts running rampant through her mind.  Out loud, she read from the paper, "Quebec is in flames once again, following a Canadian revolt against the unlawful occupation of the United States.  The army of the United States, behaving with their usual savagery, has commenced nothing less than all-out war against those citizens of the British Empire.  Proving that wickedness shall be punished, however, Providence has seen fit that the British have landed in force in the California territory.  San Francisco is in ruins, and Sacramento was seized by British regulars, this day, 1871.  The days of the domination of the United States upon this continent are over."  She handed the paper back to Sheridan, brows knitted.  "I've never heard of anything like that," she confessed anxiously.  "San Francisco burned?  Sacramento captured by the British army?"

"That's because it never happened," Sheridan said, lowering his voice even further.  "The Civil War was over by 1865, and yet here we are in 1871, and the Confederacy is alive and well, while the United States has gotten into another war with the British."

"So what happened here?"

"I wish I knew for sure."  He sat back in silent thought for a moment, trying to ignore the hot sun beating down on his head, and rough jolting beneath him, that he knew would leave him stiff and sore in all the wrong places.  Thankfully, it was only four miles, which should take less than an hour by any estimate.  Of course, that left a further eight miles of walking in front of them, but he tried not to think of that.  Several minutes passed before he spoke again, the morass of disconnected thoughts running through his mind seeming to crystallize in small ways.  "Your Commander Data said something, during the meeting, that's been bothering me," he eventually said to her.  "We know that there's something going on with the flow of time in the town we're headed for, only we don't know what.  Michael," he went on turning to face the man on his left, "you said that it sounded like there were other time travelers involved here, right?"

Garibaldi nodded grimly, and asked, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Maybe.  If what you're thinking about is whether or not this is the _first time there's been outside interference here, then definitely.  Whatever went on here, it wasn't recent."_

"That doesn't make any sense!" Crusher blurted suddenly from beneath the rim of her sunbonnet.  "I thought the idea was that Q's son was going to put us in positions where we could maintain the normal flow of time… how can we do that if he put us here too late to make a difference?"

"That was what _he said," Garibaldi commented ominously.  "I never trusted the little twerp, and now I think he's set us up.  But what for?"_

Crusher shook her head emphatically.  "No, that's not Q's style.  He likes to use his powers directly, not lurk at the fringes of things.  Other than moving us around, this time, he's leaving us to do everything for ourselves.  You wouldn't have noticed, having never met him before, but during that conference we had yesterday, his son did no more than give a few suggestions."

"So?"

"So, that's not like him at all."  She shook her head again.  "He doesn't give us those kinds of options.  He…" she hesitated, searching for the words, "toys with us, treats us like ignorant barbarians… but invariably, he loves playing god.  What I'm trying to say, is that he considers us too inferior to figure out things for ourselves, and so he makes a point of telling, or rather showing, us what he wants us to see.  Leaving us alone like this, to puzzle things out for ourselves, is… unheard of."

Garibaldi sighed and quirked his lips into a bemused expression.  "Have I mentioned yet that I don't like this?"

"Repeatedly."

Hearing the sounds of a conversation beginning behind where he was perched with the driver at the wagon's fore, Marcus decided that the topic of discussion was _not something that should be overheard by anyone local.  "Just how far are we going?" he asked, with more volume than was strictly necessary, even over the steady clopping of the horse, rattle of the wheels, and ever-present hum of insects._

"My land's only about four miles outside Nashville on this road," Dempsey Eure assured his odd, English passenger.  "Shouldn't take more'n hour from here," he hazarded.  "What's yer big rush anyway?" he asked neutrally.  At least he hoped it sounded that way.  He mentally winced, knowing that he'd catch six kinds of hell from Nate and Henry if he said something to make them suspicious.

Marcus realized immediately that he was being sounded out.  But was the man's question just that – a curiosity being satisfied – or something more sinister?  His reply, when it came, was equally cautious.  "Oh, no real hurry.  We've just come a long way, though, and we'd rather not prolong it any more than absolutely necessary."

"Is that a fact?  It must'a been a real long trip for an Englishman to wind up coming into North Carolina from the west.  Where'd you say you were from, anyhow?"

"Didn't, actually."  He fell silent, and Dempsey realized he wasn't going to get any more than that.

Changing the subject, if only not to sound more than reasonably curious about their origins, Dempsey looked sidelong at the man next to him, and asked, "That's a nice piece of work there.  Must've cost you something fierce.  What is it?"

Following the other's gaze, Marcus reached up and fingered his Anla'shok brooch, which he'd affixed to the left breast of his dark outer jacket.  Mentally, he shrugged.  He could be mostly honest here without compromising anything.  "It didn't cost me anything, personally.  It was something of a… gift.  The stone in the center is called _isil'zha, and it's very rare."_

"I reckon so.  I've ne'er seen anything like it, by God."  Dempsey kept talking, slowly tightening the reins in his hands, to slow down the nag pulling the wagon.  He hoped that by keeping the other man's attention elsewhere, their slightly lower speed would go unnoticed.  "Where'd you get something like that from?  Must be awful far away."

"You could say that," Marcus allowed, trying to steer the conversation away from specifics.

Once again, Dempsey felt like he'd hit a brick wall, and once again, was not sure of what to make of it.  The Rivington men he'd met during the war had been equally as tight-lipped about their pasts and origins, but none had even attempted to hide the fact that they were one of them.  _But then, he reflected dourly, __they hadn't tried to kill the President and start a war yet.  That would be more than enough reason for new Rivington men to keep quiet.  "Where're you headed for?" he finally asked.  He knew that might be a risky question, but so be it.  He intended on finding out something useful to present Nate and Henry when they caught up.  "I know these parts; might be able to help ya'll out."_

Marcus realized that the conversation in the back of the wagon had finally stilled, so he wasn't needed as a distraction anymore.  But it would look strange if he tried to pretend he hadn't heard the question.   With a mental shrug, he thought, _well, why not?  "We're headed north, actually.  A town called Ri –"_

"Richmond," Sheridan suddenly interjected from the back seat, shooting Marcus a look full of warning.  He didn't want to reveal their true destination, if it could be at all avoided.  The less information anyone had about them, the better.  Garibaldi must be rubbing off on him, he decided with a mental grimace.  "We're going to the capitol to see about a land claim we staked out in Okla – er, the Indian Territory."

Dempsey looked over his shoulder, not bothering to hide his confusion.  "Why didn'tcha settle your claim with the land grant people already out there?  I'm thinkin' too that you oughta be making for Washington.  The Indian Territory belongs to them, last I heard about it."

Sheridan managed to hide a wince at that.  _Damn.  So much for fitting in and avoiding suspicion._

To his surprise, it was Marcus who managed to rearrange their hasty cover story.  The Ranger hadn't heard their conversation in the back, and didn't know much more than when they'd first arrived, but he seemed to have pieced together the important bits from what he'd heard and seen.  "The border there is a little... vague, if you catch my drift," he said smoothly, adding enough guilty triumph to his expression to look utterly convincing.  "No one's going to notice if their claim is just a touch north of where it should be.  What's a few miles between neighbors, eh?"

Even more to his surprise, their driver was suddenly nodding with increasing enthusiasm.  The idea of putting one over on the United States, no matter how minor in scale, obviously appealed to him.  "And if the yankee cavalry's a bit too busy with you English, up in Canada, no one'll notice a few square miles here or there," Dempsey trailed off, grinning.

"Quite right," Marcus said approvingly.  The other man had practically furnished his cover story for him.  "As you might guess, things are a little complicated…"

"And we'd figured that'd go more smoothly if went straight to the top," Garibaldi finished, having taken to the story immediately.

"Not to mention that we'd like to see off our dear friend Mr. Cole here," Crusher chimed in expansively, "before his ship sails."  

Dempsey had turned back curiously, and Sheridan stifled a guffaw as the doctor ducked her head and batted her eyelashes at him.  Garibaldi's mouth was twisting oddly, as he fought back a smile with pure will.  Crusher's voice had gotten very soft, and begun to drawl, which was a complete departure from the clipped, no-nonsense person who'd threatened to sedate him the day before.

Crusher's smile widened when their driver flushed, and turned back to the reins in his hand with forced attention in response to her outrageous flirting.  _Yep, still got it, she thought smugly._

*****

"Have you heard anything yet?"

Worf's deep sigh started somewhere down by his feet, and worked its way up to join the irritation in his eyes.  He willed himself to keep his gaze on the viewscreen, in an effort to resist the temptation to do something Jadzia would have considered… irrational.  "Commander," he said after a long, significant moment, "I have already told you – repeatedly – that I would inform you the moment we received word from the away team."

"I know, I know."  Susan Ivanova's pacing was wearing a path in the carpet immediately behind Defiant's command chair, and she knew she was driving them all up the wall, but that was not foremost on her mind.  "It's been four hours since they went down there, and we've heard nothing.  Not so much as a 'hey, we're still alive down here!'  Something must have happened."

"We would know if a problem had arisen," Worf said softly, working overtime to convince himself that throwing her bodily off the bridge would have poor consequences for the rapport developing between the two crews.  He wasn't having much luck, and his hands twitched involuntarily.  It was the sort of twitch that had every junior officer on the bridge attempting to blend in with their consoles.

Ivanova crossed her arms and glared at his back.  "Oh would we now?"  Abruptly shifting her attention, she continued, almost to herself, "This is just like those three.  We'd be more likely to get a ransom demand for them than a call admitting that they'd gotten into trouble.  It's the three of them," she complained to no-one in particular, "They all have a hero complex.  If I weren't so used to it by now, it'd drive me crazy."  Worf agreed with that last assessment, though he only permitted himself a noncommittal grunt.  "And here I am, stuck up here twiddling my thumbs while they have all the fun.  God, it's a good thing I'm Russian, or this would start to depress me."

Taking the opportunity to cut in on her running monologue, a voice made itself known from the back of the bridge.  "Then it's a good thing that Doctor Crusher is down there with them."

Whirling, Ivanova found herself facing Picard's first officer, who grinned disarmingly.  "Why's that?"

"She's a doctor," Riker shrugged.  "Heroic stuff always involves a chance of someone getting hurt, so she won't let them.  She gets overprotective at times, but I think that's how you can tell a good doctor from a bad one."

Ivanova's mind flashed back on Stephen Franklin – at least the way he had been before the stims took over.  "I bet she doesn't put you on forced diets," she muttered.

Riker's smiled widened imperceptibly.  "Sounds like you know the type."  Changing the subject, he went on, "I assume you've gotten the grand tour already?"

"Yeah," Ivanova replied, forcibly turning her mind from the darker thoughts of a moment ago.  "Short orange guy, big ears?  Didn't seem like his mind was on it, so I cut him loose."

"Nog's been pretty preoccupied since we left DS9," Ezri piped up from her station a few paces away on the other side of the bridge.  "He's been spending an awful lot of time in his quarters, and something seems to be bugging him.  As our ship's counselor though, I'm making a point of finding out, Commander."

Riker frowned, then shrugged.  It wasn't any of his business.  "So did you have the chance to see much of the ship before you… cut him loose?"

Ivanova could tell he was trying to distract her, and at the moment, welcomed a little diversion.  Besides, she usually could tell when the captain and Garibaldi had gotten themselves in too deep… the hairs on the back of her neck would stand up.  Whether it was first officer's instinct, woman's intuition, or a result of her extremely limited telepathic ability, she neither knew nor cared.  "Well, let me see," she told Riker, "I saw a big blue pulsating column, a hanger bay with a couple of smaller ships in it, a mess hall, and a torpedo room.  Your Lieutenant was a little sparse on the details, but I expected as much."

"Why do you say that?"

"We all got tossed together by a damned teenager three days ago," Ivanova pointed out, "which just happens to be the first time any of us knew that there even was such a thing as an alternate universe.  I don't trust you, so it only makes sense that you don't trust us."

"Why shouldn't we trust each other?" Riker asked, surprised.  From what he'd seen, the two crews had the same basic principles, and they all had the same vested interest in their current circumstances.  "Captain Picard is trusting you enough that only one of our people is on that away team, and she's our Chief Medical Officer."

Ivanova's lips quirked and her eyes narrowed.  "Yes, there is that," she said neutrally.  "But I also noticed just how vague you've been about the specifics of your ships.  I mean, this one here can turn invisible, but that somehow was skipped out on the tour.  Meanwhile, as we speak, a couple of your people are over on the White Star with Lennier, practically tearing it apart from the inside out to see how it works."

Riker coughed into his palm, suddenly seeing her point.  "Though to be fair," he said aloud, "your Mr. Lennier spent most of the last day buried so deeply in our engineering section, I thought we were going to have to use the transporters to get him out."  

"Well that's great," she said, philosophically, "they know all about both our ships, but none of us do.  Hell, I guess that's only fair, I don't know what half the systems on the White Star are, let alone what they do."

"How could you not know about your own ship?" Riker asked disapprovingly.  He knew he didn't have anywhere near the expertise of the lowliest of Enterprise's engineering staff, but he knew the basics of every system on the ship, had made sure of that both on Farpoint Station, waiting for his new assignment to arrive, and again in the interval between the destruction of that ship and the commissioning of this new Enterprise.

"Well…" Ivanova dragged out with an almost guilty pleasure, "it's not exactly _our ship.  It was sort of a present."_

Riker blinked, trying to digest that.  "A present?  Commander, I might have missed something during the briefing, but I'm pretty sure that people who've seceded from their own government generally aren't rewarded with free starships."

Now it was Ivanova's turn to blink in confusion.  "You mean you thought that the White Star was one of our ships?"  She snorted that idea off.  "The White Star belongs to the Minbari.  Although I get the impression that it's a bit of a secret among them too, and that they had help from the Vorlons."

"Vorlons?"

"Never mind, if you'd ever met one, you'd understand," she said reassuringly.  At least it was supposed to sound that way.

"So the ship isn't really yours."

Ivanova shrugged.  "Not exactly.  Delenn's pretty tight-lipped about it, but I think it has to do with the Rangers.  It's odd though, because the Rangers seem like a pretty big organization, much too big for one little ship," she mused aloud.  Catching Riker's expression, she shrugged again, helplessly.  "Hell, this is my first extended trip on the thing."  She paused, turning to stare once again out at Earth's surface swimming silently past on the viewscreen at the front of the bridge.  "Okay," she said finally, giving him a sidelong glance.  "I told you what I know, now out with it."

He squinted at her, and she ignored it, never taking her eyes off the planet below.  _She sure doesn't pull any punches.  "Alright," he began, "what is it you want to know?"_

"Well, for starters, how can this ship turn invisible?"  She was facing him again, her eyes watching his piercingly.  "I mean, on our old targeting systems, Minbari stealth makes it hard enough to see so much as a profile until you're in spitting range… but this, this goes way beyond that.  Even with the overhauled defense grid and targeting scanners, we didn't see this ship sitting practically right outside the hull."

"Defiant here has the distinction of having its own cloaking device.  It can render the ship essentially invisible to the naked eye, as well as most forms of sensors.  It was part of an exchange program with the Romulans, where we got one of their cloaks, and one of their officers to keep an eye on it."

"That was the previous Defiant, Commander," Worf cut in from his seat at the center of the bridge, without looking back at them.  "The cloak installed on this vessel is Klingon, a gift from Chancellor Martok."

"I stand corrected," Riker said.  He didn't add anything more – it was harmless enough for Ivanova to know that the ship had a cloaking device, but he wasn't about to detail it's weaknesses, nor the fact that the tachyon sensors her people seemed to use could be easily modified to see through it.

After a moment's consideration, Ivanova nodded sharply.  "The power drain must be enormous.  Can you even still fight while that thing's on?"

At that, Worf turned, watching Riker as the first officer tried to school his expression back to something a little less surprised.  Obviously, he hadn't been circumspect enough.  "What makes you say that?" he asked a little blandly.

"Stands to reason," she told him.  "If I had a machine that could turn my ship invisible, I'd leave it on most of the time, if I could.  But when we ran into the Shadows back at Babylon 4, you weren't using it.  So, I figure that there must be some kind of drawback."

Shifting uncomfortably, Riker nodded, eyebrows raised.  He wasn't quite sure how to reply to that.  The weaknesses of most cloaking devices were well known to every race in the Alpha Quadrant, but he wasn't quite ready to lay all his cards on the table.  Ruefully, he had to admit to himself that Ivanova had a point – he really_ didn't trust them quite yet.  Not that far, anyway.  __Well, she's figured out this much already.  No need to do any more than confirm this much.  "That's about the size of it," he admitted to her.  "You can run the cloak for days at a time without too much trouble, but you can basically rule out fighting anything at the same time."  _

Determined not to let anything else slip like that, he assumed his best poker face – which by his own admission wasn't that good, his regular poker partners including an android who could instantly count every card in the deck and calculated absurd probabilities, an empath who could tell when people were lying (even though she swore up and down that she never took advantage of her abilities like that), and a Chief Engineer who could literally see the physiological signs of a calculated bluff.

"You said that was your first question.  What's your other one?"  His tone suggested that there had better only be one other question.  Given her perceptive analysis of the cloaking device, he wasn't willing to be faced with the minefield of difficult queries building behind her eyes.

Ivanova naturally saw that in his expression, and just as naturally, steamrollered over it.  "All right then, secondly; what's with the registration numbers on your ships?"

Riker had been concentrating so hard on not giving away any state secrets, that her abruptly disconnected question threw him momentarily off balance.  Talking with Ivanova was like the verbal equivalent of an out-of-body experience.  Shaking his head resignedly, he realized that she was still waiting for an answer – and none too patiently.  "What about the registration numbers don't you get?  They build them, and then slap a number on them when they commission them.  I assume you must have the same kind of setup in Earthforce."

"I know how that works," she said with a touch of asperity, "what I mean is that yours don't make sense.  Both of them start with 'NCC,'"

"Naval Construction Contract," Riker filled in.

"Whatever.  Your ship though, has a four digit number, one seven oh one, followed by the letter 'E.' This ship though, has a five digit number, seven four two oh five.  Don't tell me you only started building ships a few years ago, and are already up to seventy thousand!"

Wondering how she remembered those numbers after only a brief glimpse of the ships themselves when they'd first appeared, Riker explained.  "The Enterprise has something of a legacy in Starfleet.  One of them from even before the Federation itself existed, was our first real exploration starship.  But the one after that – that was the famous one, and the first one with the seventeen oh one registry.  When that one was finally destroyed almost a hundred years ago, they recommissioned another ship of the same class as the Enterprise-A.  Since then, it's been something of a tradition, and unofficially, we're the flagship of the fleet."  He couldn't help a proud smile from surfacing as he revealed that.

Ivanova digested that.  "So how come this ship doesn't have an 'A' at the end of the registration?  According to what he just said," she motioned at Worf's hunched back, "this is the second ship called Defiant."

Riker paused, confounded.  "You know something?" he admitted after beat, "I have no idea.  Worf, do you?"

Worf looked up from the small panel of screens helpfully situation beside the captain's chair.  "No," he said bluntly, "Klingon designations are far more practical."

From up by the science station, Ezri spun her chair around with a pained sigh.  "I know, if no one else does."  No one else volunteered, so she continued at Ivanova's expectant look.  "There were actually three ships in Starfleet called Defiant."

Riker snapped his fingers suddenly.  "That's right; it was one of the original Constitution-class ships, right?  I thought she was destroyed more than a hundred years ago?"

"She wasn't," Ezri said, "and that's why our designation doesn't seem to fit.  According to the logs of Captain Kirk's ship… Enterprise," she added hastily, remembering that Kirk's name would mean nothing to the Earthforce commander, "the Defiant vanished into a dimension called interphase.  So officially, she's listed as missing, not destroyed or retired, so her registry number was never stricken.  When the boys in Starfleet HQ decided to name our ship the Defiant, they had to give it a new registry number."

Now even Worf looked curious.  Riker said, "That still doesn't explain this ship's registry, Lieutenant."

"I believe I can explain that, Commanders," Worf rumbled, swiveling in his seat to face them.  "When the first Defiant was destroyed by the Breen, during the war, we were forced to abandon ship.  But the spaceframe remained partially intact.  When the Klingon fleet drove the Breen from the system, Starfleet salvage operations recovered the original Defiant's commissioning plaque from the wreckage."

Nodding, Riker agreed. "She was a tough li… ship," he finished lamely.

Worf gave him the evil eye, then grunted softly in what sounded like grim amusement.  "When Starfleet had this vessel, which was launched as the Sao Paulo, renamed to Defiant, Captain Sisko insisted that the original bridge plaque be installed on this ship.  His human sensibilities compelled him to have Starfleet change the registry on the hull to match the plaque."  Another amused snort told them what he thought of that idea.

Ezri shrugged and gestured to Worf.  "That's basically it."

Ivanova nodded, and gave a noncommittal, "Hmmph," before crossing her arms and turning back to glare at the viewscreen.

Her penetrating gaze no longer on him, Riker let out very quiet sigh of relief.  That was certainly something to file away for future notice; Ivanova could be very perceptive, and wasn't hesitant to get right to the heart of the matter with incisive questions – but give her too much information, and she lost interest.  _I wonder if that has something to do with how she remembered the registry numbers so easily.  If I remembered things that well, I'd probably want to avoid long-winded explanations too._

It wasn't long before Riker found himself staring at the viewscreen as well.  He'd never admit it, least of all to his counterpart, but the tension was wearing on him as well, and he found himself hoping that the away team would call very soon, before he too wore a hole in the Defiant's bridge carpet.

Worf also turned back to the screen, but growled under his breath.  He'd surreptitiously asked Commander Riker to come over to the Defiant, and do what he could to pry their visitor out of the room.  He could feel her eyes on the back of his head, and it frankly bothered him.  Now, he found that those pair of eyes had just gained a companion set, and the level of grim anticipation had just doubled.  It was going to be a very long watch.    


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Sheridan heaved a relieved sigh as the modest Eure house disappeared through the trees behind them as they rounded a curve in the road, which was no longer as rutted as the track they had entered Nashville on had been.  He'd been afraid that they'd never get back on their way.  Worse still, it seemed as if the fault in that delay lay with him.

They had pulled up the grassy drive to the single level clapboard farmhouse more than an hour after leaving town – an unconscionably long ride for a mere four miles, in a situation where _timing seemed to be the critical factor.  At the door, they'd been introduced to Dempsey Eure's small family, his wife Linda giving them all a suspicious once-over.  The understandably proud father had made a point of showing off his two children, a serious, dark haired boy, and a baby girl who'd greeted her father with a hungry catamount's yowl._

Marcus and Garibaldi had made their way back to the road as quickly as politeness permitted, and trying to hasten their departure further, Sheridan had handed the farmer a pair of gold coins as payment for the ride.  That had turned out to be a mistake; almost reverently pocketing the money, Dempsey invited them into his home – insisted upon it, in fact – for a glass of freshly made lemonade, and his wife's suspicious demeanor had vanished instantly as she served them.  A smaller denomination of money probably would have been wiser, Sheridan reflected ruefully.

In any event, they were just now resuming their journey, having finally impressed their hosts of their need to make haste.  The sun was definitely easing into the western sky by then, which confirmed their earlier impressions of the local time.  In front of them lay another eight miles of road.  Sheridan figured that under normal circumstances, they'd be able to cover that ground in about two hours at their steady pace – but if anything, it was hotter and more humid than it had been when they arrived, and their pace was anything but steady.  He sighed again.  At least they'd reach their destination before nightfall.

Marcus wiped a soggy rag that had been his decorative handkerchief across his forehead for what felt like the fiftieth time in the past twenty minutes.  He'd been making a valiant attempt to keep up the facade of a proper English gentleman, but between the dust and grit of the road, and the rivulets of sweat running down his face, it was a lost cause.  "Is it always this bloody hot down here?" he complained.  To human sensibilities, Minbar was a cold world, but he'd gotten used to it, and as far as he was concerned, this kind of heat had no place on a civilized planet, let alone Earth.

"It's probably going to even worse for another hour or so," Crusher responded with a faintly vindictive smirk, looking up at the sun overhead.  To her mind, the Ranger had been inhumanly cheerful for the entire first leg of their trip, and while pleasant enough at first, had begun to grate on her.  She took some small satisfaction in watching him deflate even further.  Taking pity on him, and on herself, she had to admit, she went on in a more professional tone.  "Since it's only going to get worse, at least for a while, I think it's worth mentioning that none of us brought any water, and even in this humidity dehydration could be a problem."

She'd directed the comment at Sheridan, who was clearly leading this away mission in his own way, and he nodded agreeably enough.  "I can't argue with that, Doctor.  My mouth tastes like chalk, and I don't relish the thought of being in intensive care for the next week recovering from the local water."  He managed a dry laugh at that, but meaning every word of it.  The people around here might have natural immunity to most of the things living in unfiltered surface water, but for all of them, having lived their lives with water and food that was practically sterile in comparison, and consequently no immunity to it, drinking the water from the clearest stream could be a death sentence – at the least, an invitation to a host of unpleasant diseases.  Not that he could see any sign of a stream anywhere in the vicinity of the road.  But the thought of course brought his mind back to the lemonade they'd had back at the farmhouse, and his stomach did a flip-flop.  Well, he'd worry about that when and if it became a problem.

Evidently, Crusher had the same thought, since she reached into her handbag, and dug out a hypospray.  "Just a general antibiotic," she explained, injecting herself with a measured amount.  "We'll have to watch what we eat and drink down here, because our immune systems aren't up to some of what's running around.  A lot of the diseases that are still common at this time have been long since wiped out in our history; and yours too, I'd think."

The others proffered their arms to the same injection, which was a simple enough matter, when even Garibaldi had subjected himself to it, Sheridan glanced behind them to see that the farmhouse had since dropped out of sight completely.  "The road's empty now, but I don't know how much longer that'll last, the closer we get to where we're going.  If you want to check in with your ship, Doctor, now's a good time."

"Actually, as the away team leader, you're the one who should be contacting the ship," Crusher pointed out.  "If I call the ship, they'll be prepping for a medical emergency before I have a chance to say so much as a hello."

"So you'll only make the call if someone gets themselves too mangled to tap their own badge?" Marcus asked.

Crusher paused to correct him, then shrugged.  "That's about the size of it."

"All right, I'll just make the call myself then," Sheridan groused in a vexed tone while digging through his clothes to find the innocuous little chevron.  Garibaldi made to hand him his, but Sheridan finally produced his own, glaring darkly at his security chief's smug look.  He tapped the pin's face once, then hesitated, unsure of how to make the connection, but quickly settled on something obvious.  "Sheridan to Enterprise."

The badge chirped, and Picard's now-familiar voice flooded the tiny pin with a surprising volume.  "Picard here, Captain.  We've been waiting to hear from you for a while now, so I can only assume you've got something of interest to report?"

"You could say that," Sheridan replied with a grin.  "Do you want to hear about it?"

"By all means, Captain, we'll have the computer record the whole –"

"Captain!?  It's about damned time you contacted us!"

Sheridan rolled his eyes at the even more familiar faint Russian accent that had abruptly replaced Picard's even tones.  "Sorry about that Susan," he lied.  The truth was that even if he'd been able to contact her earlier, he was enjoying this brief respite on Earth – albeit not his own – far too much to let her put a damper on things.  "We just spent the last few hours finding out what's been going on down here, and then we all got a long wagon ride, so this is the first chance we've had to give you a shout."

"A wagon ride?  John," Ivanova said, dropping all pretense at formality, "what the hell is going on down there?"

"Long story.  Now that you know we're not all dead, do you think you could put Captain Picard back on?"

Ivanova's reply was oddly sheepish.  "Uh, yeah, here you are."

"Your first officer can be very… determined, Captain," Picard said ruefully, causing Sheridan to shake his head in silent exasperation.  

_What did she do, rip the pin off his chest?  Probably, he answered himself with a mental snort.  At least whatever she had done didn't seem to have resulted in anything catastrophic.  He'd already seen that Starfleet tended to be more laid back than Earthforce – still disciplined, certainly – just unobtrusive about it.  But then, he realized that he was basing his impression of all of Starfleet off of two crews who seemed to know each other rather well.  If Picard and his staff were doing the same thing… __If Picard is doing the same thing I am, he's going to end up with a very __interesting impression of Earthforce._

Marcus and Garibaldi had walked further along the road, but were still close enough to catch that last part.  Garibaldi just looked faintly amused, but Marcus was shaking with restrained laughter.  Ignoring them for the moment, Sheridan turned his attention back to his opposite number on the other end of the channel, and said, "Captain, we've found out some pretty disturbing things about this particular dimension.  But I think your doctor here would be the best person to explain it all."__

Crusher turned to regard him with a comically betrayed gaze, and as he handed her his comm-badge, she could practically read his thoughts in his eyes.  _I may have to make the call, they said, __but at least you can do some of the talking.  They continued on their way at a slightly reduced pace while she explained the situation to Picard, and when she finished at length, she brought them to a halt._

"Wait a moment."  Almost immediately after returning Sheridan's comm-badge, a swirl of glimmering light swept across a patch of roadway, leaving a small pile of containers in its wake.  Sheridan grabbed one by a conveniently placed leather strap, and hefted it, raising an eyebrow at the simple cloth-over-metal design.

"These canteens look like period pieces," he remarked, unscrewing the cap to take a deep drought of the ice-cold water within.

"I think they are," Crusher told him, while passing out the others to Marcus and Garibaldi.  "Data outdid himself this time.  The materials probably aren't accurate, but it's enough that if we accidentally left one behind, no one would notice."   

"Which brings up a question," Marcus said, looping the strap around his shoulder.  "I've been getting the impression that your people are on something of a first-name basis with time travel.  Has anyone ever actually left something in the past that shouldn't have been?"

Crusher nodded uncomfortably.  "It's been known to happen on occasion.  When we get back to the ship, you can ask Data about that."  At Marcus's apparent interest, she shrugged and smiled slightly.  "His head is five hundred years older than his body."  Before he could voice his obvious question, she went on, "That's why even though this isn't either of our universes, Captain Picard is taking pains to obey the Temporal Prime Directive."

Garibaldi put two and two together first.  "You mean you've actually got laws against screwing around with time?"  His brows were knitted anxiously as he asked, "Just how often does this sort of thing actually happen?"

"More frequently than it probably should," she conceded.  "The Department of Temporal Investigations isn't the biggest government bureau out there, but it's not exactly the smallest either."

Sheridan frowned, setting that issue to the side for the moment.  "You called it a 'Temporal' Prime Directive.  That usually implies that there's another one."

They had started walking again after retrieving the canteens, and Crusher slowed her pace so as to walk alongside Sheridan.  "The Prime Directive is Starfleet General Order number one.  In short, it forbids interference with cultures that haven't yet discovered warp drive on their own."

"But you contacted us, and we've never invented anything like it," Sheridan pointed out, seeing where this was going already.

"You're a… special case.  We've never learned how to generate stable wormholes, like you do, so you already had interstellar flight."

"Following the spirit of the law, rather than the letter of it?"

Crusher sighed ruefully.  "Out on the fringes of known space, captain's discretion usually counts for more than an order issued almost two hundred years ago.  If there's good reason."

"I do understand how that works, Doctor," Sheridan said with a chuckle.  "I spent a few years on the fringes of known space myself on my last tour of duty.  Despite appearances," and here, he tried to grin roguishly, "I haven't been a desk jockey my whole life."

"That whole 'captain's discretion' thing sounds like it leaves a lot of grey areas," Garibaldi commented over his shoulder, "and grey areas make me nervous.  They always leave plenty of room for more than one almighty screw-up.  Not that I have anything against captain's discretion," he added hastily.  "After all, we've been living by that rule ever since we broke away from Earth, and our captain hasn't botched up yet, so I think we'll be good for a few more weeks."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Michael," Sheridan grumbled in mock hurt.

"Hey, any time, Captain," Garibaldi shot over his shoulder with a broad grin.  "That's what I'm here for."

"No, you're just the guy I brought along to draw fire in case anything happens," Sheridan retorted.

Marcus rolled his eyes at the both of them, turning around entirely, and walking backwards so he could address the doctor directly.  "Why have that kind of rule in the first place?  Call me excessively British," he said, his accent growing briefly thicker than normal, "but wouldn't you be doing those races a favor?  Spare them some of the grief we went through working up to where we are now, at any rate."

Looking saddened, Crusher shook her head.  "It isn't that simple.  We found out the hard way, and they only created the Prime Directive because we made some pretty big mistakes."  She left off there, apparently disinclined to continue on that thread.  The party fell into a silent rhythm of walking then, trudging along the dusty lane wordlessly.

"What kind of mistakes?" Sheridan asked, finally, looking for any excuse to break the suddenly uncomfortable pall that had fallen over them.

The Starfleet doctor didn't answer immediately, and he began to wonder if she planned to ignore him.  But finally, she looked up.  "I'm no historian, but there's one that's still used as the main example in the Academy of why we have the directive."  She paused to take a gulp of water from her canteen before resuming.

"Every year, a ship is sent off to a planet near the edge of Federation space, out near the edge of the galaxy, where planets are few and far between.  It's a typical M-class planet – that is, Earth-like – not much different than thousands of others.  When that ship gets there, to a place we labeled – and its inhabitants have permanently named – Sigma Iota II, it collects a full twenty percent of the planet's entire GNP in the name of the Federation."

"Bloody hell," Marcus muttered, aghast.  "What justifies that kind of extortion?"

"Oh, we funnel it all back into their own economy, discreetly of course, and through social programs, universities, and medical institutions," Crusher told him.  "More than two hundred years ago, one of the first exploration ships from Earth discovered that planet populated by a very human-like race in a pre-industrial age, and made a layover.  Their ship was destroyed a month later, and since they sent the signal with conventional radio, it was another century before anyone found out that they'd left a few things behind."  

Garibaldi winced, working out some of what might be coming next.  

"When the next ship investigated, they found that the entire race, their whole society, had based itself around a single book left behind by that first ship.  Apparently, they'd used a few other science textbooks to recreate the Chicago of the nineteen-twenties – on a planetary scale.  Their whole planet was run by a collection of mobster bosses."

"You're joking!"  Marcus was gaping openly, and only resumed his forward facing when he nearly tripped over a rock in the road.  Sheridan couldn't blame him – he knew that he must be wearing a similar expression.  Garibaldi simply looked doubtfully bemused; no doubt not believing a word of it.

"I wish I was," Crusher said dourly.  "And it didn't stop there.  The captain of that ship worked out an arrangement where we 'Feds' come to collect our piece of the action every year.  Unfortunately, the doctor on that ship left his communicator behind.  When I went through the Academy, I heard that they were working on their own warp drives, though they hadn't had any successful tests."

"When you guys slip up, you _really slip up, don't you?" Garibaldi whistled._

"I actually asked Admiral McCoy about that," Crusher admitted, "when I was working under him during my tenure at Starfleet Medical.  He says," her lip twitched into an odd smile, "that it's tough to remember a minor detail like a missing communicator when one has a tommy-gun pressed into one's back."

"And that's why you have this Prime Directive of yours?" Sheridan asked, trying to drag the conversation away from what seemed like an impending bout of nostalgia.  "Because you turned a planet upside-down?"

Shaking her head emphatically, Crusher stopped him there.  "That's the point; it wasn't just that one planet.  That's just one I can remember off the top of my head.  So, because of us, we will never know what their culture would have been like had we just left them alone.  Anything they might have been on their own was replaced by a copycat social structure."

Marcus shrugged, and said, "How many of their people were saved because they had advanced technology without having to spend several hundred years clawing their up?"

"How many of them were killed because they had access to automatic weapons without even the discipline that comes with developing that technology by themselves?" Crusher countered.

Sheridan quelled the rebellious-looking Ranger with a glance, and silently thanked Garibaldi for maintaining his own council.  The last thing they needed was to get involved in a messy tangle of ideologies.  And since he knew that they needed Picard and his crew, at least for the moment, alienating his chief medical officer would be… unwise.  From what he'd seen of Crusher so far, he didn't think she was the type to hold a grudge, but one never could tell.

"Save your breath, Marcus, we've still got almost six miles to go by my count," he said.  Wiping the back of his hand across his forehead and glancing up at the sun, he forced himself to remember that back on the ship, he'd agreed with Crusher's insistence on walking where they could, to raise the fewest eyebrows possible.  With that burning heat roasting his shoulders, a fine talcum-like dust choking his throat, and a raw blister taking shape inside a boot that had literally never been walked in, it wasn't an easy task.

*****

"Delenn?"

"Yes Lennier?"  The Minbari ambassador turned lightly in the White Star's command chair to glance at the back of the bridge.  What she saw brought her up short, and she closed her mouth before her puzzled demeanor became unseemly.  "Lennier, is there something I should be told about?"

Her aide ducked his head in a short bow, then shook it.  "No Delenn, merely an experiment.  It is of no concern."  Looking up, and gauging her reaction, his gaze dropped down at himself, taking in a greasy smudge on one sleeve, an ugly-looking scorch mark blackening the hem of his tunic, and a tear in the fabric that extended from his chest and ran up along a split seam at the right shoulder.  Realizing that his unusual state of disarray was the cause of Delenn's reaction, he smiled wanly.  "It is a very complicated experiment."

"I can see that," Delenn replied doubtfully, nodding slowly.  "I trust that if this… experiment should become a concern, that you will inform me about it?"

"Of course, Delenn," he assured her hastily.

She nodded again, acceptingly, this time, and said, "In that case, Lennier, what is it that you wished to see me about?"

He hesitated a split-second at a strange shimmering sound that made itself known at the very edge of perception, then continued since it was gone almost immediately.  "I merely wished to request permission to grant Commander LaForge access to the internal jump-engine diagnostic computers."

"Is that necessary for your experiment?" she asked quizzically.  "I do not mean to imply a lack of trust Lennier, but if I allow this, you will oversee his activities?"

"Of course, Delenn," he said again.  "His access is not required, but it will expedite the process."

Delenn sighed, drumming her fingers against the armrest.  With an effort of will, she stilled her hand.  It was an annoying habit she had picked up from John at some point, and was trying to break.  "Very well, Lennier.  Be careful though," she cautioned with warm amusement, "If you should destroy this ship, and all of us aboard it, I shall become most displeased with you."

"Then I shall take the utmost care to ensure that that does not happen."  There was a flicker of a faint smile on his lips, but it was gone before she could be certain.  "Thank you, Delenn."  He bowed and left, passing Ivanova as she entered.

Giving Lennier a long look as he passed, Ivanova strode up to the central chair casually.  "Um, Delenn," she said, "Lennier, is he uh…?"

Delenn suppressed another sigh she felt building at her aide's behavior.  Minbari in general were not prone to emotional outbursts, but Lennier was reserved even by Minbari standards.  She distracted herself by focusing on what Ivanova had just said.  "He is working on an experiment, so he tells me."

Ivanova squinted back at the doorway, no less mystified than she had been when she had first seen Lennier's trampled appearance.  "Uh, right."

"Have you received any news from the surface, Susan?"

"Huh?  Oh!"  Her face lighting up suddenly as she remembered her purpose, Ivanova grinned and nodded.  "They just called in a few minutes ago.  They're fine.  In fact," she snorted in mock irritation, "they went on a wagon ride."

"Wagon ride?"

"It's a primitive form of transportation; basically an animal-drawn box on wheels."  Ivanova shook her head despairingly, adding, "And here they had me all worried that they might be in trouble.  I should have known better.  It's just like John to go somewhere outrageously dangerous, and end up having fun."

Delenn frowned softly, trying to picture this conveyance Ivanova was describing.  "This 'wagon' does not sound as if it would be comfortable."

Ivanova's expression turned wicked.  "I hope not."

*****

The distinctive jingle and clatter of approaching horses brought Dempsey Eure out of his barn earlier than he'd expected.  Evidently, someone was in a hurry – it had been just over an hour ago that his four strange passengers had set off for Rocky Mount on foot.  Stepping out into the still bright sunlight, he pulled the brim of his hat lower to shade his eyes from the afternoon glare, and watched the horsemen as they trotted up the lane toward him.

At the fore of the small group, one of the riders, who Dempsey could immediately identify as Nate Caudell, swung off his saddle unsteadily.  He nearly made it to the ground, but his boot caught on the stirrup, and with a muffled oath, he connected the ground solidly with his rump, drawing a round of guffaws from the other riders.  One of the laughing voices, higher and clearer than the others, caught his attention, but only for a moment.

Caudell climbed to his feet, and after dusting off the seat of his trousers, bowed deeply to the assembled group.  "And now you know the real reason I was in the infantry," he announced to further laughs.  He turned and shook hands with Dempsey, uttering a quick greeting.

Behind him, another of the riders dropped to the ground with much more aplomb, and called out, "Hullo, Dempsey!" in an accent that was distinctly north of Mason-Dixon.  Henry Pleasants, formerly lieutenant colonel of the 48th Pennsylvania regiment, private in the 47th North Carolina infantry, and briefly a colonel again on the staff of Nathan Bedford Forrest, was still referred to as simply, "the Yank," by most folks.  Those men (and woman, Dempsey Eure amended upon placing that oddly light voice) gathered around now had fought alongside him, and while they still called him a Yank, for them, it was nothing more than friendly teasing.

Pleasants grinned, and grasped Dempsey's hand in a firm shake.  "What's all this I hear about more Rivington men?  These horses here are pretty much every last one I own, so this had better be for real." 

 Dempsey nodded sharply.  "I'm sure of it, Henry.  How much did Nate here tell you?"

"Just about what happened back at Lile's place," Caudell said.  "What we want to know is what you found out about those folk after you were on your way."

"Don't know that I can make heads nor tails of it, Henry," Dempsey told Pleasants directly, "but maybe ya'll can make more sense of it."  He lifted his had slightly to scratch his head, setting the feather on top bouncing erratically, and went on, "Something in the newspaper they had shook 'em up but good.  Didn't hear much more than that, on account of that English fella and I got to talking a bit.  He says he's on his way back to England.  So I asked him why they were going all out to Rocky Mount, and he started saying something, but the big feller, the leader, I think, jumps in, real fast-like, and says they're all off to Richmond, to see him off."  Dempsey's brow furrowed, and he added, "The English dandy though, he was wearing this big 'ole pin with a big fancy gem in the middle.  I asked him what it was, and he goes and says some damnfool thing like 'itzill-sah' or somethin' like that."

Caudell frowned, and ran a hand through his beard in concentration.  "That's doesn't sound like any kind of English word," he finally pronounced.  "Could be French, but I've never heard a word like that before."

"Well, I've been working railroads for years, and those coolies – the Chinamen, I mean – have some absurd words, but I've never heard a word like that even from them," Pleasants noted absently.

"That may not mean anything, Henry, could be a word you just never heard before," Caudell cautioned.

Pleasants nodded agreeably.  "There's truth in that, by God.  But what about that newspaper?"

Dempsey grinned and reaching into one wide trouser pocket, pulled out the rolled-up paper.  "It's a little worse for wear, but they left it in the wagon, and plum forgot about it when they left."  He unrolled it, and stabbed one article with a dirty finger.  "I think this here is the one that got 'em all riled."

Frowning as he read the title on the passage, Pleasants snorted irritably.  "Well, it's damn shame, but the US and Brits have been going at in for years up in Canada.  Why would that startle them?"

Shrugging, Dempsey said, "They said they'd been out near the Indian Territory these past few years.  Maybe they just didn't get any news out there," he offered, not really believing his own words.

"Hogwash," Caudell said more forcefully.  "Anyone who ain't dead knows about the war up there.  Besides, the Indian Territory still belongs to the Yanks, except those bits an' pieces Stand Waite's redskins are still fighting over." 

"How long ago did they leave?" Pleasants asked, moving back to his horse.  "I don't know if they're Rivington men, but something's awfully strange here, so I think they bear some following."  Hoisting himself back into the saddle, he looked down at Dempsey.  "Interested in coming along?"

"They left a bit more'n hour ago," Dempsey said.  Then he sighed theatrically, and tipped his hat.  "Much as I'd love to come along and probably get shot at some more," some laughs answered that, "I really cain't be leaving the farm now.  Unlike the lot of you, some of us still gotta work to put food on the table."

"Aw hell, Dempsey, it can go a couple days," the fourth and final rider called out from his elevated position.

Embarrassed to admit that he hadn't recognized the voice earlier, Dempsey peered over Caudell's head at the other two riders.  "It might be that way for you, Ruffin, but some of us don't have big strapping sons to do most of the work for us."

Caudell frowned at that, but didn't say anything:  he believed that everyone's children should get as much education as possible, to make sure they could at least read and write.  But then, Ruffin Biggs had never cared much about what Nate Caudell or anyone else thought.

Biggs laughed, but didn't have a chance to respond before Dempsey switched tracks to turn a look on the other rider, who out of all of them, was dressed in butternut rags with a corporal's stripes stitched haphazardly to the sleeve.  "Well, hullo there, Melvin, it's been a very long time since we've seen you 'round these parts.  A body would think you didn't have any other clothes but that uniform, though," he said mock-critically.      

The former Mollie Bean, now Mollie Caudell, reddened visibly.  Everyone present knew Mollie's secret wartime identity, but they were within earshot of the Eure household, and it would be better for everyone if no one else was let in on the secret accidentally.  "Hullo yourself Dempsey," she called.  "But that's Corporal Bean to you, private," she teased.

"I was a sergeant," Dempsey reminded her.

"Only one of us is in uniform, so to speak, right now."

"Uh, yessir!" Dempsey returned with a grin and a salute snappier than most he'd afforded real officers.

Pleasants waited until Caudell had climbed back into the saddle, and brought his horse around purposefully, waving backwards in acknowledgement, when Dempsey called out, "Be careful, y'hear?"

"It's about time we were on our way," Pleasants remarked loudly enough to be heard by the other three riders.  And that was the last word spoken for some time as the horses' hooves beat a quick and steady rhythm on the road towards Rocky Mount.     


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9:

Jean-Luc Picard shifted uncomfortably, standing outside of a sliding, crimson colored door, not much different than hundreds of others lining the corridors of the Enterprise.  They were perfectly normal doors, and they were aboard his own ship, but there was an indefinable air of alieness to the place that didn't exist anywhere else on the ship – not even inside the dark, stone-walled Horta quarters.  He hesitated, fidgeting, for almost a full minute, before finally and severely squashing the feeling, and pressed the door chime.

The door sprang open before he even had a chance to announce himself, and he was hit with a wave of warmth from within that was as much mental and spiritual as it was physical.  But again, it was still inexolerably alien.  "Come in, Jean-Luc, I've been expecting you."

Stepping forward to allow the door to slide shut behind him, Picard blinked while his eyes adjusted to the low light in the room.  Veiled, almost silky material draped from the ceiling to the floor, creating barriers and patterns of shifting light and shadow that flitted across his vision.  Brushing aside one of the thin curtains, he took a tentative step into the main room of the modest quarters.

Guinan looked up from where she was seated easily on one side of the couch, which she had placed directly facing the window.  Her old quarters aboard the previous Enterprise had been located along the upper side of the ship's saucer, which created the appearance of a gently sloping skylight.  On this ship, however, the rooms were located on one of the saucer's flanks, so the window was a tall, flat panel that covered a large part of one whole wall.  A bright blue and white curve filled the lower half of that window at the moment, and thanks to the web of holographic imagers in the transparent aluminum pane, stars could still be brightly seen in the distance.  Those same imagers prevented the window from reflecting back the dozens of candle flames that otherwise would have ruined the view.

Shifting a little, Guinan motioned towards the other half of the couch; on the low table in front of it, a steaming cup on a small ceramic saucer wafted an aroma that Picard immediately identified as Earl Grey.  "Sit," she said in the same soft, even tone she'd greeted him with.  As he did, he couldn't help but smile at her attire – even in her quarters, she was still wearing one of her trademark hats, this one a deep blue with a narrow base and tall, wide top.

He was at a loss, suddenly feeling uncomfortable again in the lagging silence.  She hadn't requested his presence, and he hadn't called ahead to ask if it was a good time.  He'd felt like he had to come anyway, knew even what it was he wanted to hear from her, but couldn't begin.  Lifting the cup, he stared into the tea moodily.

"It's beautiful," she said at length, gazing out at the planet below.  "It's much like our world once was."  _Before the Borg came, went unsaid, but hung in the air like some great unseen weight.  There was another small eternity of silence before she spoke again.  "You came to ask me about Q."  Her tone was once again flat, even; not a question._

"I've meant to ever since this all started," he replied truthfully, setting down the teacup untouched.  "Most of the times he makes an appearance, his intentions are transparent, even if they are malicious and irresponsible.  This time is different somehow.  He hasn't even made an appearance since we first left our dimension, and that boy has been nowhere to be found ever since we arrived here.  It isn't like him."       

"No, it isn't," she agreed.  After a beat; "How do you define what _is like him, Jean-Luc?  Intellectually, you know how powerful he can be, but I think at the same time, you've forgotten."_

One of Picard's eyebrows went up.  "On the contrary, Guinan, this whole situation has made me more aware of it than ever."

"I don't think it has," she countered, her shaking head somehow not disturbing her unlikely headpiece in the least.  "You know that he can do anything he wants to, but you are still trying to find a pattern to his behavior.  You haven't considered that there is no pattern to follow."

"I refuse to accept that.  The universe is wrapped up and constructed of patterns.  Q is unfailingly obnoxious, arrogant, amoral, and convinced of his own inherent superiority.  Those traits _are patterns."_

Guinan shook her head again.  "Jean-Luc, you are trying to outsmart a being who knows your thoughts before you do.  He is all of the things you ascribe to him, and much more."  This time, a hint of repellence slipped into her otherwise level tone.  "Which is why you cannot predict his actions.  He will do what you least expect – and then do something else entirely when you stop to think about what it is that you are not expecting.  He will always be one step ahead of you."

Picard frowned irritably.  "I've bested him before, Guinan.  He is not infallible."

"Of course he's fallible.  But have you really beaten him at his own game?  Think carefully."

"At the conference where I was giving a presentation about the ruins of Tagus III," Picard dredged up from memory almost immediately.  "He created an elaborate duplication of Sherwood Forest, and I beat him at his own game."

"Did you really?" Guinan retorted almost immediately.  "Why did he create that scenario?"

Picard squirmed imperceptibly.  "He claimed he was returning a favor – by trying to prove a point about how I felt about Vash."  He was a very private man, and wouldn't have confided even that much to many people, but gossip about that incident had floated around the ship for months despite his best efforts to lay the rumors to rest.  It hadn't helped that some of them had been true.  Guinan, he knew, was not one for groundless chatter, but the fact that she probably already knew made it easier to talk about.

"Did he succeed?" Guinan asked quietly.

That wasn't the question he'd been expecting, and it threw him for a moment.  He started to deny it, but the memories were too clear in his mind, even now – though he wasn't fond about admitting that Q had been right.  "Well, yes," he began, "but I really don't see what that has to do with anything."

"It has everything to do with this, Jean-Luc."  She paused to make sure he was really listening.  "Don't you see?  It's in your voice even now.  You didn't believe him for an instant – so, he made sure that he was telling the truth then, just to prove your first assumption wrong."

_And not only that, a small, traitorous voice whispered in Picard's mind, __but in the end, Vash went off with him, and not with you.  He winced then, both at the truth in Guinan's words, and the internal betrayal of his own thoughts.  Worse still, he knew that for at least the next few days, he'd be stewing over every encounter he'd ever had with Q, trying to prove her wrong at least once.  "Point taken.  But as interesting as that is," he said, forcibly dragging the conversation back in a direction he wanted to take, "it isn't really relevant to this instance."_

"No, it isn't," she said smiling slightly.  "It is worth being aware of, though."

"What I need to know now, is whether this is real, or another game of his."

"Can't it be both?"  She sighed now, looking back out the window.  "I can't tell you if he's merely testing you, or simply delighting in the chaos he's causing for his own amusement.  But I can tell you this; the Q Continuum is not the only collection of beings on such a lofty plane of existence, so I can't reassure you that he's lying about the M Continuum.  However, I can tell you that this is all real.  That planet and those people down there, along with our new traveling companions, are very real.  This is no Sherwood Forest."

Picard managed a wan smile at that.  If anyone else had said such a thing with so much certainty, he might have dismissed it out of hand.  But she had been the only one among his entire crew who recognized the shift in an entire timeline when they'd encountered the Enterprise-C, and he still could not begin to grasp her true abilities, or knowledge, which gave her words more weight in his mind.  "Then I suppose you're right.  It doesn't matter anymore why he's put us here, only that he has."  When she didn't immediately reply, he absently picked up the cooling tea, and drained the cup in one gulp.  He stood then, intending to return to the bridge, but she stopped him short by speaking again suddenly.

"Jean-Luc, there is no love lost between Q and myself… you know that.  Even so, I think this time, there's more to it than just a test.  Those people from Babylon 5; they're all very important for some reason, I don't pretend to know why.  I doubt it's any accident."

Pausing at the doorway, Picard nodded thoughtfully.  "Thank you, Guinan."  As usual after a talk with her, he knew he had some serious thinking to do, and sighed at the thought.  He had more information now than before, and a gut feeling was telling him that Guinan was right:  there was something much larger going on here than was usually involved where Q was concerned.  More unfortunately, that could be saying a great deal.

*****

"What do you think now, Henry?"  Nate Caudell's voice was low, and it was the first time anyone had spoken since shortly after overtaking their quarry.  The objects of their pursuit, four oddly dressed people who'd been ambling past field, stream, forest, and thicket, were now a distance ahead of them, lost to sight around another of the road's meandering turns.  Now, just approaching the outskirts of Rocky Mount – marked by an increase in the concentration of small farmsteads and plowed fields at the roadside – Caudell was more sure than not that they'd been successful in remaining hidden from view, themselves.  He hoped they had, at least, especially given the pains they'd taken to stay quiet and hidden while on horseback:  no mean feat.

Henry Pleasants shrugged easily.  "I don't know yet, Nate.  They're suspicious characters, alright, I'll give you that.  But they don't look much like Rivington men to me.  I'm the first to admit I'm no expert on those bastards, though."  Had it not been for Mollie's presence, he might have added a few more choice epitaphs to that comment.  The only thing that perhaps mitigated his hatred of the Rivington men was the smug knowledge that it'd been he who'd been ultimately responsible for their defeat.  He took a second futile glance through the trees with a pair of meticulously neat field glasses.  "The men look like they might be military," he acceded.  "Those canteens look army-issue."

"Canteens?" Caudell said, surprised.  "They didn't have any canteens when they left with Dempsey."  It was a minor concern, but it worried away at him along with the other oddities those people had demonstrated so far.

"You sure you ain't seein' things, Nate?" Ruffin Biggs commented, not a little grumpy.  "I'm only here on account of you said it was more of them.  I owe them a little payback," he said with a pointed glance at his left foot, short by several toes now, "but I think you're wrong, and damn me t'hell if I lie."

Caudell searched their faces, before turning a pleading look on his wife.  "You know more about the Rivington men than anyone, Mollie.  What do you think?"  He forbore even hinting at how she'd gained that knowledge, preferring to bury those memories in the dark, unkinder recesses of his mind.

She looked oddly nervous to be suddenly at the center of attention, and looked away, at nothing in particular.  "They don't look or sound like 'em," she said at length.  At Caudell's betrayed expression, Mollie straightened self-righteously in her saddle.  "Well hell Nate, what'd you expect me to say?  They _don't look like 'em, and they __don't have those peculiar accents.  But I think we should follow these folk anyway, because there's __something uncanny about 'em, all right."_

He didn't look entirely soothed, but Henry Pleasants saved him the trouble of replying to that.

"She's right about that much, by God."  He paused to take a swig from the canteen at his hip.  "On one hand, I don't much care for spying on people for a few oddities.  Almost seems indecent, like we're trading in their freedom so we can feel a little bit safer.  On the other hand," he allowed, "if these people are really what you think they are, Nate, then we've got to make sure they don't get anywhere near Richmond.  They tried for the President once, and they could be making another go of it."

"So what do we do?" Biggs asked into the thoughtful quiet that followed.

None of them suggested simply walking up and asking outright.  If Caudell was wrong, they would simply look foolish – but if he was right, the consequences could be quick and fatal.  The newspapers had been full of stories about the attempted assassination of President Lee at his inauguration, and while none of them had been clear on just what kind of weapon an "Oozie" was, they did know enough to not want to end up at the wrong end of one.

At that moment, they rounded a bend in the road, and Caudell pointed out their quarry, now walking around the corner of a building on the town's outskirts.

Pleasants quirked his lips when he saw the direction they were headed, and finally gave an answer to Biggs' question.  "Now, I think we check to make sure that we all have enough money for train fare."

"Something bothering you, Mr. Garibaldi?"

Michael Garibaldi turned his head back to a front facing, just in time to avoid a collision with Marcus.  "Huh?"

Sheridan gave him a concerned look.  "You've been practically walking backwards for the past couple of miles.  Any reason for that you'd care to share with the rest of us?"

Ignoring the light, amused tone, Garibaldi directed a scowl at the road behind them.  "I think we're being followed.  It started a little while ago.  I heard hoof-beats, maybe some voices from back there."

"Why didn't you say so?" Crusher asked, brushing damp strands of hair out of her eyes.  Though they could hear the bustle of a town somewhere ahead of them, the road was empty at the moment, and she withdrew her tricorder from the depths of her handbag.

While she turned on the small whistling scanner, Marcus's brow furrowed.  "Followed?  Don't you think that's being just a touch melodramatic?"  He had to get the words out between gasps, breathing having become much more difficult over the past hours for everyone except Garibaldi.  He was perspiring openly, having abandoned his dirty, soaked, handkerchief after wiping his face with it approximately nine thousand, seven hundred and forty-three times, more or less.  Eventually he'd realized that he was just smearing the noxious mix of dust and sweat more evenly across his face, and gave it up as a lost cause.

"They're probably just going the same way we are," Sheridan allowed, clearly doubting his own words.  

"There are four of them," Crusher noted, squinting at the tiny readout in her palm.  "Three men and a woman, all mounted on horseback, about eighty meters behind us."

There had been a small amount of traffic moving in the direction they were coming from, but that was infrequent, and without exception, either mounted or at least in some kind of horse-drawn conveyance.  It had been long a time since Sheridan had been on Earth, and an even longer time since he had ridden a horse on his parents' farm, but he remembered enough to know that riders traveling in their direction, even at a walk, should have long since passed them.

Garibaldi shoved his hands in his deep pockets, shook his head bemusedly, seeming to pluck the thought right out of the air.  "Like I said, we're being followed."

"Obviously we were less discreet than we should have been," Sheridan said.

Crusher looked more concerned than he sounded, but it was Marcus who spoke, after mulling it over.  "Would you like me to hang back, spring a little surprise on them?  At least keep them busy long enough for you to escape while I bravely sacrifice myself for the good of the mission?"

"Marcus…" Sheridan began warningly.  The Ranger's twisted sense of humor usually picked the most inopportune moments to manifest itself.

Glancing between the captain and the wide-eyed doctor, he shrugged.  "It's not a problem, really.  After our little run-in with King Arthur, I've gotten quite fond of the whole 'for God and Country' attitude.  It's an invigorating feeling, actually."

"Marcus," Sheridan repeated, more sternly this time, "I appreciate the offer, really, but somehow I don't think that'd be the wisest move right now."

"On the other hand, if you really insist, I'd be more than happy to sacrifice you for the sake of the mission," Garibaldi quipped, earning a glare from both Sheridan and Marcus.

At that moment, several people appeared at the curve of the road in front of them, where the only sign of the town of Rocky Mount was a gradual increase in the number of structures, and a noticeable smoothing of the road under their feet.  Crusher carefully buried her tricorder back at the bottom of her handbag, and handed her canteen to Garibaldi, who already had both his and Marcus's slung about his neck.  It wouldn't do to stroll into town bearing such an unladylike accoutrement.  They'd clearly drawn too much attention to themselves already.

Sheridan doffed his hat politely to the first group of homespun-clad townsfolk they passed, who returned the favor without seeming inclined to start a conversation.  That suited Sheridan fine.

Somewhere close by, a loud, wailing whistle rang out sharply, then again, and several more times in succession.  Glancing down at a tug on his sleeve, Sheridan caught Crusher's murmured, "At least we won't have to ask for directions," as she waved toward the sound with her free hand.

They stumbled upon the railroad station more by chance than design, coming upon the shabby, weather-beaten building as they turned a street corner, with Garibaldi still glancing over his shoulder for their unseen pursuers every few steps.  Beyond the ramshackle building, the tracks were straddled by a groaning, wheezing mass of coal-black iron – a battered locomotive.  At some distance behind it, a line of passenger cars were being manually hauled into position to be latched on by a team of shouting, swearing workers.  Whether or not they were slaves, Sheridan couldn't tell – all were evenly coated in a thick oily grime of sweat and soot, which made their natural skin color nearly impossible to distinguish at a distance.

Garibaldi raised an eyebrow, and sidestepping a few feet, got a glance between the passenger cars and the engine of the muddy brown Tar River, and the wood and brick buildings running right up to the banks on the opposite shore.  A flag flew over the courthouse there, but unlike the striped one at Nashville, this one was a much more recognizable Stainless Banner; a Confederate battle flag situated at the top left corner of a field of white.

Sheridan meanwhile climbed the creaking wooden steps to the splintered platform, and glanced about, searching for something resembling a ticket counter.  A squeal of the wood behind him told him that Beverly Crusher was just as curious as he was – and just as determined to be at the fore of their mission.  What he found was a booth, also made of wood grayed by age and the elements, occupied by a wrinkled, gap-toothed old-timer.  The line in front of it was short, but also apparently slower than it appeared.  With a resigned sigh, he took his place at the end, behind a nervous little man in a frock coat.

Watching as the heavily muscled workers coupled the passenger cars to the coal tender behind the locomotive, Garibaldi had forgotten their situation for a curious moment, and was only reminded of it when Marcus suddenly elbowed him in the ribs.

"What?"  He grumbled at the Ranger without looking.

Marcus tossed his head, gesturing over his shoulder with his chin.  "Don't look now, Mr. Garibaldi, but we've got company."

There was time, perhaps during the height of the Roman Empire, for a period lasting no more than ten minutes, when the words, 'don't look now' were actually spoken literally.  Garibaldi, of course, immediately spun on his heel, catching two people in his gaze.  Both were a few inches shorter than himself, but nearly everyone seemed to be.  The older-looking bearded man was stocky and thick-set, with a short, limping gait, while his companion was dressed in a set of clothes that must have seen better days.  The pants were a light grey in the places that weren't hastily patched up, while the tunic was a butternut color with two distinctive upside-down chevron stripes on the sleeves.  Unfortunately, he couldn't see much of that person's face, courtesy of the battered forage cap yanked down with the brim pulled low.

_That's a uniform!  Garibaldi realized with some alarm.  Given the state of it, he didn't think that person was active military, but in this situation, it wouldn't pay to be wrong.  These people would bear watching, but dismounted, he had only his own suspicions to tell him that these two had been among the four following them on the road._

As if they sensed him thinking about them, they both glanced his way briefly, their pace faltering slightly before they went on, climbing the platform steps.

"Let me guess," Marcus said at his absolute drollest, "you don't like this."

"Damn right," Garibaldi returned sharply.

"Are they with the group following us back on the road?" the Ranger asked, voicing Garibaldi's still-strong suspicion.  "This doesn't bode terribly well for us if we've been spotted already, you know."

Garibaldi snorted.  "Tell me about it.  Can't say I look forward to riding this monstrosity," – he jerked a thumb at the wheezing train engine behind them – "to the next town.  We should have walked straight there from the first town we passed through."

Marcus groaned.  "Mr. Garibaldi, you may enjoy marching thirty-five kilometers in a day on a chokingly dusty road in the most awful heat imaginable, but just how much use do you think we'd be to anyone by then?"

"Maybe," Garibaldi allowed grudgingly.  "But when we decided to go through this, we didn't know what to expect.  Now that we do, I was thinking; shouldn't our plan be changing to match what we're seeing?  I don't like that transporter of theirs much, but it would save a hell of a lot of time, and God only knows what's going on back home while we're out here playing historian."  He grunted softly, still keeping a wary eye on the two men who'd gotten on to the ticket line behind Sheridan and Crusher.  "Ask me, we should find a quiet spot, bounce over to whatever dump of a town we're supposed to be going to, find the bad guys, and beat some heads."

Brushing some of the dust from his originally foppish clothing, Marcus frowned distastefully.  "As appealing as that sounds right now, we don't even know that there _are any 'bad guys.'  Besides, you have to admit that this is at least a little fun."  He quailed at the dark look Garibaldi shot him.  "Or not," he corrected.  "Where's your sense of adventure?  It's not every day that we get to go back in time."_

If anything, Garibaldi's expression turned even grimmer.  "I think I could do with less time-traveling, myself.  If I'd known the price of a little help from our local alternate universe was to get tossed around in time and space like a Centauri ducat at the gaming tables…"  He left the sentence hanging there, but Marcus could sense more lurking behind the words.

"You seemed perfectly happy with our friends here after they'd finished putting you back together," he observed.

"Yeah, well that was before we got dragged along for the ride."  He stopped, and it was a few minutes before he spoke again.  But when he did, it was on another matter entirely.  "You know what the worst thing is, though?"  The question sounded rhetorical, so Marcus let it pass.  "On the White Star, now that they've finally installed some private quarters, they were nice enough to put kitchens in them – only there's no ingredients for anything but flarn.  On the Enterprise, I can literally get my hands on anything edible I want; only they're so used to getting their food from machines, that they've got no galley and no kitchens in those giant quarters."  He shook his head wondering at the irony of it all – the facilities and the ingredients, but no easy way to put them together into a homemade batch of Bagna Cauda.

"Fate's a cruel old bitch, Marcus, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise," he sighed.

"Garibaldi?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you trying to make up for not having Susan down here with us?  I haven't been this depressed in hours."

Henry Pleasants chewed his lower lip in concentration and looked thoughtfully past his companions to where the sun was drifting lower in the sky, lengthening shadows casting bars of light and dark across the nearly empty street.  Most people in town were headed in for supper, although on the farms it would be hours yet before it grew dark enough to call it a day's work.

"Are you absolutely sure about what you heard?" he asked again.

Ruffin Biggs bobbed his head enthusiastically, while a wide-eyed Mollie Caudell said, "I wasn't standing but an arm's length behind!  I heard them clear as day when they asked for four tickets to Rivington."

"Paid for 'em in gold too, Henry," Biggs added a heartbeat later.

"Yes, they do seem to have a lot of that, don't they?" Pleasants mused, only half in amusement.  "Wouldn't surprise me if they paid Dempsey well for his services, and he just happened to forget to tell us about it."

Nate Caudell snorted wryly, and grinned.  "We'll just have to ask about that on the way home, seein' as I'm the one who told him to give them a ride.  I think I should get a piece of that."

"We do know more than we did when we got into town," Pleasants said, steering the topic of conversation back to the matter at hand.  

"Right," Caudell agreed.  "There's four of them, and they're all going straight to Rivington on the Wilmington and Weldon, here," – Pleasants punctuated that with a derisive grunt, still not having forgiven them from firing him because of his lenient stance with the black workers under his charge – "and we know that other differences aside, they act odd, spend gold like Rivington men, and they're all as big as Rivington men."

"One other thing, Nate," Pleasants added, drawing a curious look from his friend.  "We know that there's at _least four of them.  Remember the canteens?  Somewhere along the walk here, they picked up four army canteens, but there's no other stores but Lile's between here and Nashville, and they didn't loot those from any farmer."_

Mollie's eyes widened again.  "Damnation, Henry, you think there were more of 'em on the road we didn't see?"

"I don't know.  It's a moot point now, though," he replied, shrugging.  Implicit was, _No one shot us in the back as we rode past, did they?  "How long until the train leaves?"_

"Ten minutes, by their schedule," she told him, suddenly triply glad that she'd finally got the knack of reading.  Ruffin Biggs, like many of the men in their county, was illiterate.

  "Good, that gives us at least twenty minutes," Pleasants said, earning some knowing laughs.  He looked at the sign on the building whose porch they were standing beneath, and which they'd purposely chosen as their rendezvous point after Mollie and Biggs had scouted out the train station.  Unlike every other building in town, a string of copper wires ran outwards from the rooftop, along a series of tall wooden posts that quickly disappeared through a purpose-cut lane in the trees at the edge of town.  "Nate, Mollie, you wait here.  Ruffin, make yourself useful, and get back to the train station, keep an eye on our suspects.  I'll be right back."

Biggs grumbled, but stumped off in the direction of the station.  Pleasants took himself into the building's main room, where gas lamps were being lit by one of the workers.  Grabbing a piece of stylus and a sheet of paper, he wrote out a brief message, then paid the telegrapher, and sat back to wait.  It didn't take long before the man came out of the back room, staring warily at the words "War Department" printed at the header.

Coming back out into the fading but still-bright daylight, Pleasants read the tersely worded message, and cursed softly.

"What is it, Henry?"  Caudell didn't know who it was his friend was sending telegrams to, but he knew that look and dreaded it.

Pleasants crumpled the message, wincing.  "It seems we've been drafted.  Welcome back to the army."

"Drafted?"  Mollie's voice was confused and plaintive.  "Can they do that?"

"I don't rightly know.  I don't think so," Pleasants said grimly.  "But are you really going to tell General Forrest, 'no,' to his face?"  


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

Nathanial Caudell's face went paler by sever shades as he blanched.  Even Mollie looked shaken.

"How on God's green earth did you get hold of Forrest that fast?  It's only been fifteen minutes!"  Caudell was doing his best not to look queasy, but his best wasn't enough.  Nathan Bedford Forrest had remained in the army even after the war had ended, having found it more to his liking than civilian life, but the years since the end of the war had done nothing to dull his ruthless ability, or his personal lack of civilized polish.  Men had followed Lee because they loved him, and followed Jackson because they respected him – but they followed Forrest because they knew better than not to.  He was among the few general officers remaining in Confederate service who kept his commission once the fighting had ended, by Lee's order; few men had it in them to rise more than three or four grades in rank, even during the war when promotions came thick and fast.  Forrest had started as a buck private, and had ended the war a Major General. 

Pleasants shook his head tiredly.  "I thought Forrest was still out fighting Indians in Sonora.  I was rather hoping to have gotten the ear of General Johnston, myself.  I don't think he would have drafted me into the army, at the very least.  I figured on getting someone high up, though.  If I were in their shoes, I'd have any message about the Rivington men sent straight on up to Lee."  He chuckled sourly, then continued, "I was the one who sent the message, so it was me he drafted, along with 'whomever else you can rely upon in this matter.'  But…"

Caudell winced, but Molly looked oddly excited.  The passage of time had a way of dimming memory into nostalgia, and while she was perfectly content as the schoolmaster's wife, she remembered the war years with more fondness than most; although her sordid background played no small part in that feeling.

"Forrest wants us to follow them to Rivington, then?" she asked gamely.

Pleasants laughed uncomfortably.  "As I was about to say, I'm not Forrest, and while I'm stuck with this, you aren't.  If you don't want to get involved, I won't tell a soul you were ever here.  But if you're willing, I'd be much obliged."

Mollie looked far too enthusiastic for Caudell's peace of mind; which meant that she'd certainly go with Pleasants whether or not he went as well.  And truth be told, he was having serious thoughts about going along with this mad venture anyway.  He was curious about the four people they were tailing, and coupled with his suspicions about the true nature of the Rivington men, he wasn't about to let his friend run off to face them alone.

"It's a good thing I won't have to miss any classes for this," he said, somehow dredging up a smile.  Mollie whooped.

Pleasants grinned hugely.  "Thanks Nate, I really appreciate this.  I just hope we don't all get killed."

"You're a regular fountain of cheer, Henry," Mollie called half-teasingly as she started walking in the direction of the train station.  "Ya'll coming?  It sounds like they might be making last call right now.  I'll go get Ruffin, see if he's too old for this kinda thing yet."

Caudell laughed, following her path with his friend still beside him.  "What about weapons, Henry?"

Holding open one flap of his vest, Pleasants tapped his finger against the solid black butt of a pistol nestled securely in an inner pocket.  Light glinted briefly from it, as if from metal, before he let the concealing cloth fall closed.

Impressed despite himself, Caudell felt his own eyebrows climb.  "That's a pretty odd kind of pistol there, Henry.  Where'd you get it?"

Pleasants shrugged, but a humorless smile crossed his face fleetingly.  "It belonged to a Rivington man.  He didn't need it anymore."  There wasn't anything else to say about that.  It seemed grisly in the light of a warm summer evening, but when hard times had stalked the Army of Northern Virginia, soldiers got their arms and supplies where and when they could.  Caudell and the other men of the Castalia Invincibles had become familiar with those kind of dire straights – and when Henry Pleasants had been stuck in a shallow dirt wash with them for the more than a month, bullets from a Rivington endless repeater whipping overhead near constantly, he'd become familiar with it too.

"That's all well for you, but what about the rest of us?"  Caudell waited expectantly.  He wasn't afraid to go back into combat against the Rivington men, but he wasn't keen on doing so unarmed.

Pleasants shrugged again, this time looking uncomfortable.  "Truth to tell, Nate, I don't rightly know.  There's supposed to be a garrison in Rivington, so we should be able to get what we need there.  We're just supposed to follow them though, so if we're fortunate, we won't have to bother.  I'd offer to buy something right here for the rest of you, but just the stabling for the horses and the train tickets are putting a pretty dent in my funds."

"Oh."

Hearing the train whistle, both quickened their steps as the platform came in sight.  Before they reached the steps, Caudell had thought of something else, and stopped just short of the lowest stair.

"Say, Henry?"

"Hmm?"  Pleasants stopped also, though the impatience on his face was clear.

"Does this mean I've got to start calling you 'Colonel' again?"

A wolfish grin split Pleasant's features, and he took the steps two at a time without answering.  Groaning theatrically, Caudell followed.  A selfish hope ran through his head that the train would suffer a sudden breakdown and they'd just have to give up the chase knowing they'd done the best they could.

The train only whistled again.

*****

"No!  Absolutely not!"

With look of pure desperation on his face, Jake Sisko went on pleading his case.  "Well why not?  I thought you were my friend!"

Nog shook his head even more forcefully, and bared his pointed teeth.  "If I was not your friend, I would have handed you over to Worf for even _suggesting _that I smuggle you aboard.  And you know very well why not.  I can't believe you're even thinking about beaming down there.  Do you have any idea what they'd do to both of us if we were caught?"

Jake snorted.  "Like what?  There are laws you know.  Besides, by now, I'd almost welcome a change of scenery to the brig.  I'm going stir-crazy in here!"

"This is not a laughing matter!" Nog hissed.  "I know your Federation laws as well as you do, hu-mon, and Worf could have us both shot if he wanted to!  You're a civilian who smuggled his way onto a starship on active duty, and I'm your accomplice.  Did you even think of that?"

With a breezy wave of the hand, Jake dismissed that possibility.  "C'mon Nog, it's Worf we're talking about here.  We've both known him for years.  He wouldn't do something like that."

"Wouldn't he?" Nog countered.  "He's also still a Klingon, Jake, and he's been living on Qo'noS for the past two years.  How do you know what he would do?  This was a mistake, and I never should have agreed to it," he moaned again.  "And that's exactly what I'll tell them at my court-martial."

"What's the big deal?  We beam down, take a look around, and beam back.  Q hasn't made another appearance for almost three days now, and I've got to have something to go back with.  My readers will string me up if I don't, and I can't write a good story locked in this room!"  Jake's mounting frustration was pouring out now, and he started pacing the utilitarian quarters furiously.

Nog was not in the least sympathetic.  "Maybe you should have thought of that before you talked me in to this," he pointed out acidly.  "Besides, even if you did get down there, what then?  You did even worse in Earth history than I did.  You wouldn't know what to expect, I wouldn't be able to beam you back up until my next shift no matter what happened, and we could be thrown into some other dimension while you're there, and strand you there permanently!"

Jake started to object, but his memory fished up too-clear recollections of Keiko O'Brien's classroom, and his own grades.  Worse still, he knew Nog was right – going down would be an unnecessary risk, and he really could not remember much about Earth history before the twenty-first century, and that only because of the role his own father had played in it.  But in his friend's words he sensed an opening.

"We could look that kind of stuff up in the databanks," he said dismissively.  Almost as an afterthought, he added, "You know, I wonder how much a genuine mint-condition ancient Earth artifact would go for in the Alliance."  Relics could be replicated easily enough, but despite that, or perhaps because of it, original items held a great deal of value just about everywhere in the quadrant that held wealthy collectors.  The temporal prime directive banned interference in the time stream, but there was nothing about snagging a few souvenirs – at least nothing Jake could remember.  He could see Nog's ears visibly twitch at that thought, and his eyes widen at the tantalizing prospect.

Then his training kicked in, and his face went hard.  "No.  I won't be a part of this.  If you want to go down there so badly, you can get out and swim there yourself."  Nog's voice wavered slightly in spite of his resolve, and Jake noticed that immediately.

"Nog, just think of how proud your father would be if you managed to acquire some valuable human relics for him!"

"I'm thinking of what he'd do to me if I were thrown out of Starfleet," Nog grumbled.  But Jake could sense that resolve crumbling before his eyes.

"The riskier the road, the greater the profit," Jake quoted solemnly.  "Rule of Acquisition number sixty-two.  And don't forget number nine –"

"I know, I know," Nog replied testily, "Opportunity plus instinct equals profit.  But we both know that I don't have the lobes for business… and I am still a Starfleet officer."

Jake heard the hesitation, and grinned, knowing he'd won.

"If we do this," Nog said, lowering his voice into something resembling a conspiratorial whisper, "we're going to do it my way, understand?"

Barely containing a triumphant shout, Jake's grinned widened, and he nodded vigorously.

Noting his friend's reaction, Nog mumbled something darkly in Ferengi.  At Jake's uncomprehending look, he clarified, "I was just reminding myself of the two-hundred and eighty-fifth Rule of Acquisition:  No good deed ever goes unpunished."

*****

"Hey, Marcus, wake up."  A pause.  "Marcus!"  This time the word was accompanied by a none-too-gentle nudge, and Marcus Cole's hand was halfway to his concealed pike before he recognized Garibaldi's voice.

He sat up straighter from where he'd slumped sideways in his seat, rubbed the numb spot on his cheek where it'd been pressed against the dirty glass of the window, and took in his surroundings.  His eyes adjusted quickly – the only light he could see came from a swaying overhead lamp, whose wick burned low and dimly.  In the gloom, he could see Garibaldi keeping a wary eye out for trouble while Sheridan stifled a yawn, and Doctor Crusher set about gathering the folds of her dress about her.  Marcus took some morbid comfort in knowing that he hadn't been the only one to catch a quick catnap, though Garibaldi's contrasting alertness irked him.

"Why the wake up call?" he asked fuzzily.  "Are we there yet?"  Almost as soon as he said it, the absence of the clacking and rattling that had marked their passage registered on his semi-conscious mind.

"You could say that," Garibaldi answered, pointedly looking down to the end of the car where a porter was making his way forward, marked by a bobbing lantern.

"All out fer Rivington," he called out softly as he passed them, slipping between Garibaldi and Sheridan, and continuing down the aisle.  "We're not stopping here, so if this ain't where you want to be, jus' sit tight."

"That sounds like our cue," Sheridan muttered, motioning for them to follow him to the exit at the far end of the car.  They piled out of the train car on to the mostly deserted platform; a few more candle lamps in the station's windows providing the only light in the murky gloom that pervaded the atmosphere.  The temperature had gone down since sunset – now it was only muggy and warm, as opposed to scorching – but clouds or fog had rolled in with the nightfall, and there were no stars; only the faint, fuzzy glow of the moon provided any other light.

The design of the station and platform itself was not dissimilar to the one they'd come from in Rocky Mount; though if that one had looked weather-beaten, this one simply reeked of neglect.  Paint peeled in swatches from the shingled walls, and the floorboards beneath their feet felt the slightest bit slick, as though the boards played host to a thin layer of slime.  Beverly Crusher was relieved to see that they weren't the only ones jumping train at this unlikely destination – further down the platform, another group of four stepped out onto the platform, though at this distance and in the low light, she could see nothing specific about them.  Two other people embarked the train through the same door the other group had come through.

From out of the darkness down towards the front of the train, its whistle shrieked like a lost soul, a lonely sound that seemed eerily appropriate for their locale.  The sun hadn't been down for too long, but even with the extended daylight of midsummer, none of them were used to such an oppressive blackness.

_Of course, _Sheridan realized with a start, _there's nothing bright enough to create any light pollution here._  Even having grown up in a relatively rural area, they sky was still often too bright to see stars clearly, on those nights when the cloud cover wasn't cast in a pale brown glow.  Judging by the reactions he was seeing from both Marcus and the Starfleet doctor, he guessed that the situation on Minbar and her Earth weren't altogether different.

Garibaldi cleared his throat suddenly, snapping Sheridan out of his introspection.  "Well, any ideas where to now?"

Sheridan frowned and shook his head, irritated at himself.  After all the trouble they'd gone through to avoid making themselves objects of suspicion, that would be exactly what they were doing if they continued milling around a nearly deserted railroad platform.  "Follow me," he said confidently, leading them to the stairs, only a few feet away.  Descending the steps to the bare ground below, Sheridan turned a corner around the stationhouse, and stopped short, barely feeling someone bouncing into him.

Behind them, the train whistle howled again, and the locomotive began to roll off in a hiss of released pressure and grinding of iron wheels on a length of steel track, but four pairs of eyes were riveted to their immediate front.

"Bloody hell," Marcus exclaimed in a stunned whisper.

One whole side of the train station on the lower lever was bashed in, as though struck by a tremendous hammer.  Burnt and splintered wood littered the ground near the gaping hole, though it hadn't reached as far as the ticket booth up on the platform; which seemed to be the only part of the station in operation anyway.

"It looks like somebody set off a bomb in there," Crusher remarked, still looking at the damage through wide eyes, while already reaching for her tricorder.

It looked that way to Sheridan too, though something about it struck him oddly.  Garibaldi put his doubts into words a moment later.

The security chief had already picked up and was examining one of the shards of charred wood, simultaneously swinging around and taking a closer look at their surroundings.  "Whatever did this was from the outside.  Look at where most of the debris is – inside.  But whatever happened here, happened a long time ago."  He pointed to the splintered boards that ringed the hole, saying, "See how weathered those pieces are?  They look almost like the outside wall, which means they've been exposed to the elements for a while."

Crusher brushed an errant strand of hair out of her eyes, fingering her unopened tricorder in surprise.  Michael Garibaldi had already told her just about everything her medical scanner could have in less time than it took for her to get the device out of her handbag.  She had a fleeting thought that Worf would have approved.  "Why haven't they bothered to repair the damage, if it's been like that for so long?" she wondered aloud.  Garibaldi could only shrug at that.

"I think the better question would be _what caused that," Marcus said._

"A big artillery piece could have managed that," Sheridan responded.  Then he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing in the opposite direction from the station.  "But I don't think artillery did _that."_

His gaze directed their eyes to a point directly across from the stationhouse where a neat row of wide, scorched beams stabbed the air, looking like a row of jagged obsidian headstones.  Directly across from the hole in the station wall, however, that row was interrupted by the burnt and shattered remains of a smaller building – still a sizable structure in its own right – and Garibaldi pointed it out at once.

"Anything that blew in that wall would have come from right there," he said, pointing out the obvious.  "But those buildings look like they were burned down, not demolished."

"Well, we were looking for something unusual," Crusher said philosophically, walking purposefully to the small building's rubble.  "I'd say that this qualifies."

The three men followed along, drawn by their own curiosity, and it was Marcus who first spied something interesting in what was essentially a great mound of ash and charred wood.  Stooping to pick up one particular bit of wood which seemed to have escaped some of the worst of the fire, he turned it over in his hands, brushing some of the encrusted grit off.  "That's odd," he muttered to himself.

"What is it?" Sheridan asked, sparing Marcus a glance before surveying the ground at his feet more carefully.

Instead of answering right away, he turned the piece over in his hands again, squinting at something on it, something that remained elusive under the faint, baleful glow of the lamps in the station office, behind and above them.  "There's something written on this, but I can't read it.  I'm afraid I forgot to bring a flashlight.  Didn't think we'd need one."  

"Good thing I'm not as forgetful then," Garibaldi jibed, withdrawing a small but powerful light from his belt.  At Sheridan's surprised look, he explained conversationally, "I make a point of carrying one around.  There are some parts of Downbelow that you just don't go near unless you bring your own light."

"I'll keep that in mind, Chief," Sheridan replied thoughtfully.

"You know, I told Jeff I should clean that place out completely, and the offer stands.  Especially now, when we aren't even being supported by Earth anymore, we sure as hell can't afford to – whoa, hold on just a second.  This can't be right."  Garibaldi's voice tapered off when he got a good look at the board Marcus was still patiently holding.  "Captain, you'd better get a look at this."

Sheridan peered over Garibaldi's shoulder, and took in the broken board, now brightly illuminated by Garibaldi's flashlight beam.  Like theirs, his eyes were immediately drawn to cleanly stenciled letters that read, MEALS – READY TO EAT.

*****

Susan Ivanova hit the ground in a tangle of limbs, grunting as the breath was driven from her lungs by the powerful blow that had felled her.  Her only weapon flew from her fingers like a thing possessed, and the velocity of its departure convinced her that she'd never recover it.  At the last moment, she was able to turn the headlong tumble into something approximating a roll.  Before she could congratulate herself on the ungainly movement, a second blow brought an end to the second wind she felt coming on.  This time there was no recovering from the fall, and only the helmet she wore saved her from a ringing headache.  The tough, resisting mat beneath her certainly would not have.

"Enough!" she called out to her assailant, sitting up and yanking the offending headgear – and its accompanying blinders – free of her hair.  Rolling over, Ivanova sat up, propping herself up on the palms of her hands, and glared.

When Will Riker pushed back his blinders and grinned at her, she felt a momentary flash of satisfaction that he at least looked winded.

"That was much better," he told her truthfully, extending his free hand to help her up.

She accepted the help as graciously as she could manage, and said, "Right.  That's why it took you all of fifteen seconds to smear me across the mat."

Riker's grin widened, but his tone was serious.  "I did warn you earlier that I've been doing this since I was eight years old.  I may not be in quite as good shape as I'd like to be –" he'd long since accepted the fact that he was no longer the lanky, wiry officer he had been when he'd first reported aboard the Enterprise more than ten years ago.  "– but if I couldn't still beat a complete novice, I'd really be in trouble.  And like most novices to _anbo-jytsu_, you're still relying too much on your sight."  He hefted his own three-meter staff, and gestured to one of the wide, blunted ends.  "The proximity sensor on the end will only give you a general idea about where your opponent is – but it won't tell you anything about where their weapon is.  For that, you have to rely on your other senses:  sound, vibrations in the mat, and air currents, among others."

Ivanova cocked her head and gave him a thin-lipped smile.  "In that case, how about this time you wear the blinders and I don't?"

"Won't that kind of defeat the purpose?" he asked, watching her retrieve her fallen staff and helmet.

Ivanova pushed the helmet back down on to her head, and slid the opaque visor up and out of her eyes.  "Not really," she told him, "since my purpose right now is to take you down at least once."

"I see," Riker said, cocking an eyebrow at her.  "Do you make it a habit to cheat?" he goaded, testing her reaction.  He was curious to find out if his counterpart was as intemperate as the woman who'd almost needed to be carried out of the holodeck a few nights before.

"Of course not," Ivanova replied sharply.  "But all's fair in love and war."  She spun the staff easily in one hand, and tried to look as menacing as she could, knowing that she was moments from another embarrassing defeat.

Pulling the visor down over his eyes, Riker asked, "And just which of those applies here?"

Ivanova waved dismissively though Riker could no longer see it, and then lunged suddenly, hoping to catch him off guard.

He twisted, catching the broad end of her weapon with his own, and brushed it aside almost contemptuously.  His own counterattack was a sudden flurry of strikes that left her staggering, even with the tremendous advantage of sight.

Risking a feint that left her open to another punishing blow, she rolled hard, narrowly avoiding a searching sweep from the shrilly beeping sensor at the end of his staff, and swung upwards in a short arc.  Ivanova felt a flash of fierce satisfaction – that one had gone home, and Riker staggered.  The movement was barely perceptible, but she knew it was no figment of her imagination.

However rusty it might have been, Riker's training kicked in though, and he turned the stumble into a sidewise lunge.  Ivanova's exultation dried up as she registered the rapidly descending thrust, the fact that her last attack had placed her face directly in its path, and the sheer futility of stopping or dodging it – and Riker paused uncertainly at the jarring shock that ran up his arms.  After a moment in which the faint drone of his sensor confirmed that its target was no longer within the sparring circle, he made to remove his helmet and examine the damage.

"I'malright," Ivanova said mushily, working to uncross her eyes.  She blinked several times, and told herself that the stars would go away soon enough.

"Sorry about that," Riker offered contritely.  He waited, still concerned, to be sure that she wasn't more injured than she thought.  He had never pulled blows against his father, and the thought of doing so against anyone else had never occurred to him.  

Ivanova shook her head, then stopped abruptly when the motion made the stars she was still seeing change color and swirl madly.  "That's ok," she enunciated more clearly, "that was my own fault.  I should've moved faster.  Although I'd be appreciative if you'd help me snap my jaw back into place."  The stars had faded completely by the time she finished speaking, and she pushed herself to her feet.

It was a relieved Starfleet officer who helped her stand completely, and only the chime of an open communications channel prevented him from insisting that she go down to sickbay.

"Picard to Commander Riker."

Her head finally clearing, aside from the ache where Riker's weapon had struck the point of her chin, Ivanova smirked at him as he glanced up at the ceiling to reply.  He didn't even realize he was doing it.

"Riker here, Captain."

Contact established, Picard's tone became conversational.  "We've just heard back from the away team, Will –"  Out of the corner of his eye, Riker saw Ivanova react to that news, and squashed a grin.  "and Captain Sheridan has elected to remain on the surface tonight.  He says they've confirmed a temporal incursion, and they'll be looking for some clue as to what Q intends for us in this reality.  I have already informed Ambassador Delenn, but Commander Ivanova proved somewhat more elusive.  If you see her, I'd like you pass this along."

"I'll do that, sir," Riker responded with a smile directed at the named party.  "As a matter of fact, she's right here.  We were having a… first officer's meeting."

There was the tinniest of hesitations from the other end.  "Understood, Number One.  They should be contacting us again shortly, and when they do I plan to convene in the conference room to consider the situation further."

"Yes sir, we'll be there.  Riker out."  He turned then to Ivanova, and suggestively asked, "Another match?"

Ivanova made a show of shifting her jaw back into its proper place and laughed; then winced as the bruise forming on her chin twinged painfully.  "Maybe another time, Commander."  She suddenly looked devilishly thoughtful.  "If you're still interested when this all blows over, though, I'm sure Marcus would give it a try.  I don't know what it is about men and big sticks, but he's pretty good with his Minbari pike.  And that would be a win-win situation for me, since I'd get to watch at least one of you get kicked around like a rag doll!"

Riker grinned more broadly.  He was starting to see just what Sheridan saw in his executive officer.  Even so, he was unfairly glad that she didn't want a rematch – this way she'd never know how effective her one landed blow had been, since he could have the bruised ribs seen to before she found out.


	12. Chapter 11

                First off, I just want to apologize to everyone who's still keeping an eye on this story.  I have no intentions of letting this piece die out, but some times real-life has a way of kicking us around a little bit, and with a little bit of luck and some more elbow grease, delays like this should be the exception and not the rule.

Chapter 11

Ruffin Biggs stopped short at the bottom of the train platform, and swung around to see whatever was visible in the light of the dim and fluttering lamps from the train station.  "_This _here's Rivington?" he asked disbelievingly.  Like Henry Pleasants, he'd fallen behind during the last mad scramble through the folding lines of the Rivington men, and had never seen the town itself.

"You believe it, Ruffin," Mollie scolded him.  She knew she sounded defensive, but when she reached the ground, and got a good look around for herself, she instantly regretted snapping; even sympathized with his comment.

"Sorry, Mol… ah, Melvin, but this ain't quite what I was expecting," Ruffin replied with a chastised expression.  "I sorta thought I'd see… hell, I don't know."

Caudell understood what he meant.  "You thought maybe the streets would be paved with gold, is that it?"  When Biggs nodded sheepishly, he said, "I was expecting the same thing when I first came by here, back in sixty-four."

Henry Pleasants had a more important realization though.  "I don't know abut paved with gold, Nate, but where are the factories?"  He squinted into the darkness, and shook his head.  "How in the hell did they build more than a hundred thousand repeaters and all those munitions without any kind of factories?"

Nate and Mollie shared a knowing glance, but Ruffin Biggs turned to Pleasants in consternation.  "Maybe we just cain't see 'em behind the trees," he suggested doubtfully.

Sensing the conversation taking a dangerous turn, Mollie suddenly pointed into the chill darkness where the town met the edge of the encroaching woods.  "There they are!" she exclaimed suddenly, pointing.

Pleasants squinted in the direction she indicated, and said, "The factories?"

"The Rivington men," she clarified, using her outstretched hand to guide his eyes down below the tree line.  Squinting into the murk, they could see that she was right; four figures were shuffling amid the rubble directly across from the train station.  As they watched, one of them stooped and hefted a shard, pointing it out to his companions.  Their voices were muted by distance and the oppressive air, but Caudell felt a chill working up his spine nevertheless.

_That's the building the time-engine was in! _he realized with a start.  Several dire thoughts wormed their way through his brain at the same time, but the predominant one asked, _What if those are more Rivington men, come to learn the whereabouts of their friends?  By Mollie's expression, he could tell the same idea was gnawing at her._

Biggs glanced at the ground and scuffed his shoe impatiently against the bottom step of the station platform.  "So Henry… err, Colonel Henry, what do we do?"

Pleasants turned and stared at him blankly for a moment before blinking and shaking his head.  "We follow them, what else?" he said, waving them forward.  He led them slowly at an angle towards the center of town, bringing them obliquely closer to their quarry as they moved.  There was no sense in alerting the Rivington men here, in their own lair.

He slowed further though, holding up a hand to emphasize his point when one of the four strangers – the woman, by the bulbous silhouette of the dress – pointed into the forest beside where a neatly-laid road had once been.  She said something inaudible, gesturing with some object in her left hand.  The tallest of them, whose height and wide-brimmed leather hat identified him as the one called Sheridan, nodded, replied, and led his own team towards the woods.

Watching their careful movements, and the way they were picking their way across the debris beneath their feet, Caudell tensed.  What made him more nervous though, was the way they weren't reacting to their pursuers.  He was being as silent as possible – they all were – but even so, they were making no small commotion crossing the charred rubble of the old warehouses.  _They had to have heard us by now, _he thought uneasily.

Still, there was no reaction.

When an angry wasp buzzed past his ear, he only spared one hand to brush at that side of his head.  The briefest of moments passed while the sound drifted through his mind, and in the depths of memory, connected with something.  The adrenaline rush clubbed him right between the eyes just as the second bullet whistled past directly between him and Henry Pleasants, who was already throwing himself to the ground.  The unmistakable wet smack of a bullet into flesh reached his ears at the same time as the third and fourth bullets whined by – overhead now, with his face pressed into the cold, wet ash on the ground.

In a move that he knew was foolish, Caudell lifted his head and tried to process as much as he could see in a brief, sweeping glimpse.  The four Rivington men were down, he could see: whether or not they'd been killed or were simply lying low the way he was, he couldn't say.  He hadn't heard any shots, but the bullets were unmistakably real, and he could only guess at the direction they had come from.  To his right, he saw Henry Pleasants crawling into the dubious shelter of a fire-blackened stump of building support.  Almost immediately, a sense of blinding panic caught him as the sound of lead striking home replayed itself in his mind.  Heedless of the risk, he lifted himself far enough off the ground to turn around, dreading the thought that Mollie had once again stopped a bullet.

But she was crouched behind what might once have been a section of roof, peering intently in the general direction from which she thought the shots had come.  When she noticed his relieved gaze, she waved shortly, ducking quickly when a bullet thudded into the wood above her.

Swiveling his head farther around, Caudell spied Ruffin Biggs lying sprawled across a jagged pile of splintered beams and charred foil of some metal he couldn't begin to identify.  He whistled and waved to get Biggs' attention as best he could, but the other man didn't look up.

Biggs was swearing actually, quite profusely too, by any standard.  "God damn it to hell," he finished.  Finally, he glanced up and saw Caudell, staring at him.  "Sorry, Nate," he said, sounding sheepish now.  "It's this damned bum leg o' mine.  It don't take kindly to all this scrap on the ground, and…" he trailed off suddenly as he glanced down at himself.  Even through the darkness and the gloom, Caudell could see his face go completely ashen.

Fighting the urge to scream or panic, Biggs stared fixedly at his right thigh, which was actually squirting bright red blood, colored a deep burgundy in the darkness, from the big artery the bullet had severed there.  It was a funny thing, he would think later: as though his brain didn't know what to make of the damage until he saw it with his own two eyes; his leg only felt dead and numb for a brief moment after he got an eyeful of it.  Then the pain blindsided him, and he retched, too stunned to scream, while his vision darkened and the world become a dim, colorless shadow at the far end of a black tunnel.  Part of him knew that he needed a tourniquet right away or he'd bleed to death right there on a rubble heap in Rivington.  His fingers wouldn't cooperate though, and slicked with blood, their feeble attempts to unfasten his belt weren't going to be fast enough.  "Aw shitfire," he slurred before his vision went totally black, and consciousness fled.

*****

Michael Garibaldi was never certain about his first warning came from.  It might have been a flicker of light in the forest, a suspicious shadow, or the snap of a twig crunching beneath a foot.  Whatever it was, his instincts were suddenly screaming at him: the same instincts that had kept him alive for more than three years on Babylon 5.  They had only failed him once, so he was in motion almost before the first bullet buzzed past.  His momentum carried him straight through Sheridan, who was sent sprawling with an indignant curse, and into Beverly Crusher, shoving her to the ground none-too-gently.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Marcus hesitate for a split-second before he also made a headlong dive for the cold, damp ground.

Glaring at the twisted piece of metal protruding from the rubble six inches from his face, Sheridan pushed aside the throb in his left shoulder where he'd hit something hard on the way down.  "Mr. Garibaldi," he came close to snarling.  He rolled himself over, and started to sit up.  "What the –" He threw himself backwards instantly, cutting off his own words when he heard a ricochet from that scrap of metal, and saw it spark.  Somehow, his hat had managed to stay on, and he yanked it off violently to clear his vision, and make himself a smaller target.

The initial surprise wore off quickly, his heart slowing its racing, and his first coherent thought was to wonder about the source of that fire.  He rolled, and squirmed sidewise, so he could look back towards the train station, and the four figures who'd been a few dozen yards behind them just moments ago.  He couldn't see them anywhere.

When Garibaldi saw the direction of Sheridan's gaze, he tugged the other man's sleeve with the hand that wasn't gripping his PPG, and shook his head when he was sure he'd gotten Sheridan's attention.  "It's coming from in front of us," he hissed, pointing to some indefinable spot in the woods.  There were no reports giving away the location of the shooter – or shooters, as the case might be – but the pattern of strikes gave him some idea about the origin of the shots.

Sheridan nodded, understanding.  _Those four either hit the dirt when we did, or they're already dead, he thought, sparing one last backwards glance.  He thought he heard voices back there, but couldn't be sure.  His attention quickly turned to his own team, though.  "Is everyone all right?" he called out.  That was mostly for Marcus's sake – he couldn't see the ranger from where he lay, but Crusher was pulling herself into a better vantage point, and Garibaldi was clearly not injured.  The intermittent bullets still whistling overhead were a constant reminder that the current state of affairs couldn't go on for too much longer._

"I'm fine," the Starfleet doctor answered immediately.  "Just a little shaken.  Who would be trying to shoot at us?" she sounded more baffled than worried, which reassured the two Earthforce officers slightly.  Despite Picard's recommendation, she was still an unknown quantity as far as they were concerned – as was Picard himself.  So far though, she was living up to the Starfleet captain's glowing report.

"I'd say that's an academic point now, don't you think?" Marcus said, his disembodied voice sounding almost conversational.  "And in case anyone's wondering, I'm fine too, thank you."

Garibaldi rolled his eyes, then scooted sideways until he was beside Crusher.  "Yo, Doc, not to sound impatient here, but this would be a great time for another one of those scans," he told her, resting his PPG hand against an eye-level outcropping in front of him, and sighting into the inky murk beneath the trees where he was certain the shots had come from – were still coming from.

To Sheridan's surprise, Crusher glanced his way, waiting for a confirming nod before she once again withdrew her tricorder, and started tapping away at the controls.  Almost a minute passed, slugs still striking the ground with muffled thumps, and hissing overhead with almost monotonous regularity.

"Any time now," Garibaldi chimed in helpfully.

A sound escaped Crusher's throat that might have been a growl or a frustrated sigh.  "I'm doing what I can, Mr. Garibaldi, but this is a medical tricorder.  It isn't meant for tracking people in these kinds of conditions."  _So if you'd be kind enough to keep your mouth shut… she might have added._

Garibaldi took the hint, for a change, and went back to scanning the impenetrable blackness behind the nearest trees.  That it was a slugthrower being fired their way wasn't a question.  But why there were no gunshots, no muzzle flashes, and only a random stutter of shots merely joined the list of questions he did have: a list that was topped by whoever was taking potshots at them, and why they were doing it.  Garibaldi needed answers.  He needed to be able to at least see the enemy, even if just for a moment.  He needed light.

"I've got something," Crusher said then, reflexively flinching as a bullet kicked up a puff of ash and dirt inches from her face.  "The four life-signs behind us are the same ones who were trailing us back before we boarded the train.  But there are two more in the woods in front of us.  They're together, about seventy meters… that way."  She aimed her tricorder in front of her, and slowly swept it to her left by several degrees before stopping.  "Right there."

Sheridan couldn't see any visible distinction about the area Crusher was indicating, but she did seem to know what she was doing, so he nodded soberly.  He mulled over his limited choices, and made the kind of decision he'd become accustomed to in his tenure on Babylon 5 – a spur-of-the-moment choice with too little time and information to work with.  "Garibaldi, what do you say we get a good look at who we're dealing with here?"

Garibaldi grinned.  "You read my mind, Captain."  His flashlight would give away his position, and probably wouldn't penetrate far into the gloom anyway, and none of them were carrying flares.  _But there's easier ways to shed a little light on the subject than that,_ he mused.  Some poor, slug-throwing gunman was about to get one hell of a shock.

"All right, wait for my order.  You take the left, I'll take the right."  Sheridan put action to the words, shuffling sidewise to his right side, taking care to keep pieces of scrap and debris between himself and the shooters.  There was no sense in giving them a better target.  He spared a glance back the way he'd come, and saw Garibaldi likewise crawling away.  He started to turn his head in the direction he was moving, then did a double-take.  He hadn't even noticed at first glance: Crusher was gone.  

He jerked his head around, a split-second of panic gripping his chest.  Had she left?  Betrayed them?  Then he spied her, and swore colorfully.  She was creeping backwards as fast as she could with her formerly billowy dress bunched up around her ankles.  Sheridan resisted the urge to call out, and bit his tongue, reminding himself that giving away his position could be fatal.  

Crawling between the blackened stumps of two beams, near what might once have been a wall, he nearly collided with Marcus.  

"So what's the new plan?" the Ranger asked, causing Sheridan's heart to skip a few beats.  He was at least keeping his voice low – barely audible, in fact – but most of his good humor had drained away with the first bullets.  "Anything I can do to help?"

"As a matter of fact, there is," Sheridan replied in the same faint whisper.  He paused, glancing backwards to check on the progress of both Garibaldi and Crusher, then returned his attention to the expectant Ranger.  "I want you to talk."

Marcus blinked, unsure he'd heard right.  "You want me to talk.  While we're being shot at.  I think I should feel insulted, though I don't know quite why."  He seemed to roll the idea around in his head as he spoke, and Sheridan finally scowled.

"Talk, sing, make noise; I don't care what you do," Sheridan told him pointedly, "just make sure that our new friend out there is looking right _here_ when Garibaldi and I make our move."

Mulling that over for a moment, Marcus murmured, "It'd be nice if I knew what that move was going to be," as he watched Sheridan crawl away.

"You'll know it when you see it," Sheridan shot back over his shoulder, before disappearing into the debris.

Marcus scratched his beard distractedly.  "So I'm a diversion," he said to no one in particular.  "That's all right, I can do that.  It wouldn't be the first time.  I just need to think of something… diverting."  He looked around as carefully as he could manage while keeping his chin barely an inch off the ground, and took stock of what was available.  Not much.  Involuntarily, his fingers closed on his pike, and in another flash of thought, his road-beaten derby.  "At least I won't miss this dratted thing," he said, removing the hat.  "I'd better be more careful though.  If I keep talking to myself, people will start to think I'm taking after Ivanova.  Now there's a cheery thought."

*****

Beverly Crusher swore silently at the ridiculous clothing that was slowing her pace so considerably.  As she crept forward, the fabric of the large-bottomed dress crumpled and caught beneath her ankles, and she tried not to imagine the difficulties she'd have extricating herself from the garment once the away mission was over.  Instead, she kept one eye fixed on the display of her medical tricorder.  The small screen gave her only a basic understanding of what was happening.  It still showed the two life-signs in the woods – obviously the gunmen – and Sheridan's people, two of whom were in motion, and the four she was making her way towards.  Almost immediately after the first shots, she'd watched, horrified, as one of those four suddenly began to fade.  It was bad enough to be shot at by parties unknown, but if their explorations had just resulted in the death of an innocent…  She pushed the guilt aside, reminding herself that she didn't actually know what had happened, but even so, their whole operation stemmed from her idea, and she knew exactly who she would blame if that idea had just resulted in someone's death.

Those thoughts nagged at her as she moved, and another joined it after a moment.  If she helped, she could be violating the Prime Directive… possibly both of them.  She bit off that line of thought furiously, with a sharp inhalation.  _Cross that bridge when you get to it, Bev, she scolded herself._

When she'd glanced behind her right before the shooting began, she'd been certain that their followers were no more than thirty or forty meters away… now, crawling on her stomach on jagged piles of burnt wood and dodging bullets, that distance seemed to have become ten times longer, despite the reassurances of her tricorder.

Over the top of one especially large piece of what might have been a crate, she spied movement finally, and crossed her fingers.

"Hold it right there, missy!"

The shout was authoritative, if tinged with more than a little apprehension.  More importantly, she realized, as she located the source, that hurried command was enforced.  Even from what had to be another ten meters, the bore of the pistol aimed at her face was a terrifying cavern.  "Don't shoot!" she called out, dropping the tricorder, and holding out two empty hands.  "I'm here to help!  I'm a doctor."

The muzzle of the stumpy black pistol never wavered, and she could hear the sounds of a muffled conversation the man at the other end of the weapon was having with someone else she could not see.  The discussion was whispered, but heated, and while she waited, Crusher discreetly slipped her tricorder back into her handbag.  She was acutely aware, however, that every passing second meant that the wounded man would be that much harder to save.  As it was, she knew it was entirely possible that she was already too late, and found any further delay unbearable.

Finally, though, the muzzle of the gun dipped to the ground, and the lean, bearded man behind it waved one hand in a beckoning gesture.  "All right, but keep low and move slowly."  His companions remained hidden in the shadows, but Crusher could hear a whispered argument still taking place.

Moving closer, which was a difficult prospect on her stomach, with both hands outstretched before her, Crusher took the opportunity to examine the gun that was still being held at the ready, if no longer aimed at her.  It wasn't easy to see in the faint illumination cast by the sickly yellow lamps in the windows of the town and the railroad station, but its basic shape and color, stubby and black, respectively, were clear enough.  The grip looked unusual as well, but wrapped in a hand, and held in the shadows, that was all she could tell.  She shook her head irritably – she wasn't an expert on firearms of any kind anyway, preferring the utility and non-lethal options of a phaser – so even if she could get a better look, it would likely be meaningless to her.

When she was close enough, another bearded man she assumed had been one of those talking leaned over the pile of rubble they were sheltering behind, and helped her over the top.  It was a friendly gesture at odds with their still-hostile attitudes, but she thanked them all the same.

"You say you're a doctor, ma'am?" the second man asked, sounding dubious.

Her eyes narrowed involuntarily at his tone.  "As a matter of fact, I am," she told him.  "Now where is he?"

"Wait a moment," the first man said suspiciously.  "How'd you know we have wounded?"

"I saw it happen," she said half-truthfully.  _I did, in a manner of speaking.  _She asked again, "Where is he?  We don't have much time."  When she saw them hesitating still, she stuck out a hand.  "I'm Beverly Crusher.  _Doctor Beverly Crusher," she emphasized._

Her action seemed to perplex the both of them, but the one with the gun slipped the weapon back into his jacket, and after a beat, took her hand and shook it gingerly.  "I'm Henry Pleasants, Doctor Crusher.  This here is Nate Caudell," he said with a surreal politeness, given the occasional bullets still zinging overhead.

Caudell seemed more lost about how to handle the introductions, and instead of taking her hand, he doffed his hat and ducked his head as low as he could manage from four inches off the ground.  "Ma'am.  Uh, I mean, Doctor."  The name connected then, and she recognized the man she'd seen briefly back in the general store, that same afternoon.

Pleasants lifted his head suddenly, and glanced back in the direction from which Crusher had come.  "We should be able to move a little more freely now," he commented.  "Looks as though your friends out there are drawing most of the fire."

Curious, and not a little alarmed, Crusher took a look for herself, and was startled to see movement in the darkness.  As her eyes picked out the details, she blinked to be sure that she was actually seeing a pole with a round hat atop of it moving to and fro amid the rubble.  Frequent flashes of light there marked where bullets were striking stone and pieces of metal in the rubble.  As she watched, the hat suddenly bounced into the air, and fell.  The pole followed it down, and a brief moment later, the pole was raised again with the hat still stubbornly draped over it.

"It would seem that way," she murmured, then ducked back to the ground, and said, "Let's go."

Pleasants nodded with some consideration, and led her in a rapid scuttle to the shelter of a large wooden crate.

A third person looked up from the wounded man there, eyes wide.  In spite of the battered forage cap and tunic, and the wary eyes, the feminine lines of her face were unmistakable.  "Nate, what're you bringing one of them here for?"

"Take it easy, Mollie," Caudell said.  "Says she's a doctor, and you know as well as I do that them Rivington surgeons could patch up damn near anything."

Crusher hurried over to the fallen man, and noticed grimly the amount of blood pooling on the ground, black under the night sky.  Without speaking, she checked the man's pulse and respiration the old-fashioned way, before turning her attention to the wound itself.  If she could avoid breaking the Prime Directive, she would, though that was appearing to be less likely as she probed the bullet hold, and the severity of the damage became apparent.

"He's lost a lot of blood," she told the two anxious faces in front of her.  Pleasants had already shuffled off to his original position.  As she worked, Crusher talked to try and reassure them.  "I think the bullet hit the femur, and deflected out through the back of the leg.  That's good in a way, since we won't have to remove the bullet.  Unfortunately, it chipped the bone, and we can't close up the wound until we can remove those fragments."  Another glance at Caudell and Mollie told her she might as well be speaking Greek, and she sighed.

Crusher resigned herself to her next decision.  "What that means," she told them, "is that I can't save him here.  I've got to operate."

"You can save the leg though, can't you," Caudell said quietly.  It wasn't a question, but the doctor was too focused to notice.

"Of course."  Now Crusher was momentarily confused.  "Why would I have to amputate?"

Caudell and Mollie shared a meaningful look.  "You're like them, ain'tcha?  Ya'll are just like the Rivington men," Mollie said, almost accusingly.

Crusher's confusion grew, though a suspicion that had been running through her mind for a while now was beginning to crystallize.  "Rivington men?  What do you mean?" she asked cautiously.

Mollie leaned forward, and fixed her in a deep, intent gaze.  "You're from the future!"  


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Nate Caudell gasped.  He'd entertained the same thought, even began to expect this.  But hearing it spoken out loud… he stared at his wife, once again awed by her forthright bluntness.  She had never been one to be less than perfectly direct with her opinions, but even after what they'd witnessed together during the war, they'd never actually talked about it.  It was if they'd both harbored a hidden belief that the very idea of people traveling between years as one might travel between towns would be seen as lunacy by the other.

To hear Mollie not only speak the idea out loud, but to directly accuse one of the people they both suspected of being among the most dangerous in the Confederacy, momentarily stunned him.  Stunned him long enough in fact, to notice that Mollie herself suddenly seemed taken aback by her own brashness.  More unnervingly though was the other woman's shocked reaction.  Relief followed that – Henry Pleasants was several paces away, and plainly devoting his entire attention to the eerily silent gunfire still erupting from the forest.  He'd given no sign that he'd heard Mollie's incredible claim.

Beverly Crusher startled so badly that she almost dropped her tricorder.  For her part, she'd come to expect some surprises when dealing with alien cultures.  Some were simply more perceptive than others, or more aware than they seemed.  But none of her experience had prepared her to expect this kind of reaction here in the environs of primitive Earth, though her experiences with Samuel Clemens had left her with a new appreciation for the intellect that could thrive even in this day and age.

"What makes you say that?" she asked, trying to sound merely curious.  Crusher knew she was treading on thin ice, and feared that she'd already cracked it beyond repair.

Mollie's momentary bout of second thoughts was erased by the perceived challenge.  "We've been on to you this whole time.  You're the first Rivington woman I ever saw, but except for the clothes, you and your friends over yonder are just like the others were."  She tilted her chin up defiantly.  "Seems like someone else got the drop on ya'll this time though."

Crusher stared at her, and wondered just how she was supposed to reply.

*****

Data paused suddenly in his scans.  He'd been running a series of topographic and climatologic sensor sweeps, recording his findings for both historical comparisons and dimensional similarities.  So far, what he'd found was relatively minor – a few coastal areas with slightly different shapes than what would be expected for this same year in his own universe, a minor variance in the Gulf Stream, and Mount Everest was eight meters taller than predictions from his own universe would have led him to believe.  They were curiosities, but he absorbed the staggering amount of detail flowing across his screen with great interest.  At the same time, however, he'd kept a watch over the area where the away team was currently located, and something in that screen had caught his attention.  Taking several milliseconds to evaluate a closer scan, and determine a course of action, he swung his chair around purposefully from the console at the rear of the bridge.

"Commander Riker," he said without preamble, "I appear to be detecting emissions consistent with energy weapon discharge from the away team's location."

Riker swung around in the captain's chair, his silent brooding replaced with concerned alertness.  He grimaced as he heard Ivanova catapult from the seat she'd claimed – Troi's seat, under normal circumstances.  He was oddly glad that it was no longer right beside the captain's chair as it had been on the last Enterprise.  "What?" he asked.  "Can you confirm that?"

There was a tiny, unquantifiable delay before Data replied, "Yes sir, now reading two distinct sources.  Discharges appear to be helium plasma."

"Those are PPG's!" Ivanova exclaimed.

"Are you sure about that?" Riker asked.

Ivanova glared at him.  "I'd stake my rank on it."

Grimacing again, Riker growled, "If you're wrong, we just might."  He turned away, and snapped, "Hail Captain Sheridan!"

The fresh-faced ensign who'd replaced Boral at tactical stiffened, and said, "Aye sir!"

Riker was already spinning on his heel, bypassing an impatient Ivanova, who looked as though she were about to speak.  "Data, can you tell what they're shooting at?"

"Unknown, sir," Data said with a small frown.  "I am not detecting any humanoid life-signs or traces of mechanical activity in the direction they are firing in."

Riker's brows knitted in a mixture of apprehension and vexed curiosity.  "Tell Captain Picard what's going on, and have sickbay send a team down to Transporter Room Three, in case we have casualties.  Commander Ivanova and I will meet them down there.  You have the conn."

"Understood, Commander," Data said, his flat tone a clear indication of his increasing proficiency at controlling his emotions.

Glancing finally at Ivanova as he strode to the turbolift doors, Riker said, "Coming, Commander?"

Ivanova matched his pace instantly, her face dangerously set.  "Try and stop me."  Her tone of voice, more than her narrowed eyes, invited everyone in her path to clear the hell out of her way or else.

Within the uncomfortably close confines of the turbolift, he studied Ivanova under the soft overhead lights, and wondered what they'd all gotten into.  He hadn't met Sheridan, but from what he'd seen, the Earthforce captain didn't seem to be the type to start a shooting war over nothing.  Particularly after Picard had made it very clear that they were not to use their weapons except under dire circumstances.  And if they weren't responding to their comm-badges, he could only begin to guess what was actually going on down there.

Ivanova remained silent during the short ride, and preceded him out into the corridor the instant the lift doors swished open.  Riker sprung to catch up to her near-jog, and discreetly pulled ahead to make sure she didn't make a wrong turn.

They rounded the last corner in tandem, just as Riker's badge chirped for attention.  "Picard to Commander Riker," it said in Picard's tinny voice.

Riker slowed without glancing up, and replied, "Riker here, Captain.  I take it Data told you what's going on?"

"You can," the captain said humorlessly.  "We've also just received a communication from Doctor Crusher.  She's beamed directly to sickbay.  We still have no word from Captain Sheridan."

"Understood sir," Riker said, stepping through the transporter room doors.  

The crewman behind the console there was engrossed in his station, already finishing his work, and didn't glance up as they entered.

"Myself and Commander Ivanova were just about to beam down to investigate," Riker added.  "I didn't want to bring them up if they were visible to any of the locals."

"Belay that, Number One," Picard said shortly.  "We still don't know what's going on down there.  Captain Sheridan is not responding to hails, and we already have wounded.  Apparently I wasn't clear enough with him that they were not to discharge their weapons without extreme provocation."

"Now hang on just a damned minute!" Ivanova snapped, whirling away from the transporter pads, and glaring at Riker for lack of a better target.  "Captain Sheridan knew how important this mission was, so the only reason he'd fire is if he were under attack."  Her fury was palpable, but a shadow of concern in her voice transmitted over the comm-link.

"Be that as it may, Commander," Picard said, trying to bring his temper under control, "that appears to be…"  His voice dropped off suddenly, and Riker and Ivanova glared at each other for the long seconds before the captain's voice returned.

"Commander Ivanova," Picard said softly, sounding contrite, "It appears I owe you and Captain Sheridan an apology.  Doctor Crusher just informed me that they did come under attack.  Primitive projectile weapons, apparently."

Ivanova glared at Riker with a mix of fading anger and no small amount of vindication.  "Not to sound ungrateful, Captain, but while I appreciate the vote of confidence, primitive weapons can kill just as well as a PPG or one of your phasers.  Request permission to beam down and bail them out."

"Permission denied."  Before she could protest, as they both knew she would, Picard went on, "I think we've found what we were looking for.  I appreciate your concern for the Temporal Prime Directive, Number One, but I think a situation like this warrants bending the rules a little.  Transport them all up now: I'll be there shortly."

Uneasy still, Ivanova grudgingly nodded, then said, "Understood," when she remembered that Picard couldn't see her face.  She guessed that Picard wanted to hold another meeting – and consideration didn't sit well with her, especially when her thoughts drifted back to what she imagined might be going on back at Babylon 5.  As long as they were bringing back the Captain, Garibaldi, and even Marcus, she wasn't inclined to complain too loudly though.  Yet.

The doors hissed open again, and Nurse Ogawa entered leading a pair of sickbay orderlies, and soundlessly motioned them to move their grav-gurney into an out-of-the-way place along the far wall, acknowledging Riker's grateful look with a curt nod.

Will Riker gave the command, and on the soothingly-lit alcove in front of them, two shapes began to appear in a haze of sparkles.

Staring at each other before the figures within became discernable, the two first officers shared a moment of sudden panic.  _Two?_

*****

Rolling hard, Marcus Cole felt more than heard the bullet that sparked as it struck his pike.  Above him, his hat was lifted from the top of his weapon as if by a sudden current of air.  He was already retracting the pike as the hat drifted down to nurse his stinging palms, and he gave the hat a mournful once-over as it touched down.  Several holes punctured the fabric, and the silk inner lining was a shredded mess.  A quick inspection showed that his pike sported no matching dents, though it still irked him.  "Have you any idea how old this is?" he called to his unseen attackers.  

As the minutes had dragged by after Sheridan had given him his chore, Marcus had begun to strike up a one-sided conversation with them gunmen in the woods.  It wasn't much of a debate, but he kept it up, since it kept their bullets focused in his direction as Sheridan intended it to, and more importantly, allowed him to vent his spleen at them.  Several more bullets stitched their way along the top of the incline he was concealed behind, and lying on his back, he absently pondered the loosened dirt, rocks, and ash that slid past him.  "If that's how you always shoot, it's a bloody miracle you haven't put a bullet through your own foot yet!"

The distinctive rippling hiss of a PPG discharge brought his head around swiftly, and creeping back to the top of the low rise, he watched as from several dozen meters to either side of him, sizzling orange pulses began to pepper the suddenly visible forest.  Almost immediately, several trees began to crackle and burn, lighting the gloom beneath their branches as tongues of flame danced outwards from PPG burns on branches and trunks.  In a few places, small fires crackled cheerfully among damp leaves and undergrowth.

The moment the afterimages of the sudden light cleared themselves from his eyes, Marcus could see that as quickly as they had tried to move, their mysterious assailants had moved faster.  Not so much as a squirrel stirred in the considerable area now touched by the light.  More importantly, the intermittent gunfire had ended completely.

A strange, faint burst of sound reached his ears then, like the trill of some alien bird as heard through a synthesizer.  Unable to place the sound, or pick out a direction, the Ranger shrugged and glanced behind him.  There was still no sign of the four people that had been tailing them, or of Doctor Crusher.  After almost a minute passed with no further sound to disturb the close, muggy silence, he called upon all of his training to rise to his feet as noiselessly and motionlessly as possible.  Almost unaware he was doing so, released a pent-up breath.

"I think they've had it.  Good show!"

More silence greeted his words.

His mind raced.  _I was just speaking with the captain a moment ago.  Surely they couldn't have wandered out of earshot already!  _"Captain Sheridan?" he called, nearly shouting.  "Mr. Garibaldi?"  He bit his lower lip, glancing around rapidly, and unconsciously dropping into a fighting stance.

Nothing.

"Dr. Crusher?"

For a moment, he came perilously close to wishing that he had been issued a handlink.  Sure, the annoying little critters always seemed to be beeping for attention when they were latched on to Sheridan, or Ivanova, or Garibaldi, but…  _It'd certainly come in handy right now, _his mind insisted forcefully.  Remembering something else, he searched his pockets for the Starfleet chevron pin he'd been given before beaming down, but came up empty.  It must have fallen out somewhere while he was scrabbling around in the gritty black ash of the rubble they'd been sheltering in.

Shaking his head, Marcus elected to put that mystery aside just for the moment, in favor of the original one.  Staying low, he moved into the smoky light of the still-smoldering trees as quickly as he dared.  His eyes picked out the spot their attackers had been holed up in almost immediately.  Atop a squat earthen bulwark, branches had been piled to obscure a shallow dip in the ground that could easily fit several people, as long as they didn't mind being cozy.  Some of those branches looked dry and wilted, as if they'd been cut down at least a few days earlier, Marcus noted, examining the site.  Unfortunately, other than scuffed earth at the bottom of the makeshift gunner's nest, there was literally nothing else to indicate who the occupants might have been.  Nothing else at all, in fact.  "Damn," he murmured, fingering the dirt around a few partially wiped-out footprints.

Stooped over and concentrating on what clues the ground might yield, he almost ignored the sudden imperceptible feeling that raised the hairs along the back of his neck.  He'd been a Ranger too long to ignore something like that, however, and he was almost instantly behind a tangle of undergrowth, hidden in the increasing darkness as well as his unsuitable clothing allowed.

The same strange shimmery sound he'd heard right after the firefight had ended tingled in his ears once more, only this time, it was much, much, closer… and indefinably familiar.  Deciding that patience was the better part of valor in this case, Marcus crouched lower into the surviving greenery, and restlessly fingered the haft of his fighting pike.

*****

John Sheridan's hand was still at full extension, with a gently smoking PPG clenched in his fist.  The only difference after a moment of vertigo and a now-familiar tingling sensation was that the muzzle of his gun was pointed right at his own first officer.  It wasn't until afterward that he had a chance to be thankful for the subdued lighting in the transporter room that allowed him to see anything at all in the sudden illumination.

Grateful that he didn't have a twitchy trigger-finger, Sheridan dropped his arm the moment his brain could put together a coherent nerve impulse.  "Susan?  What the…"

"Sorry about that, Captain," she said, chagrined, "but it wasn't my call."  She tossed a sharp look over her shoulder, and Sheridan spotted Commander Riker a few feet behind her when he stood up.

"Commander," Sheridan said, clearly aiming his scowl at the man in the Starfleet jumpsuit, "I hope you've got a damned good explanation for pulling us out of there like that."

"More importantly, where are Marcus and your doctor?" Garibaldi cut in, nodding towards the circular transporter pad beside him that held only a single Starfleet chevron pin.

Riker worked his jaw, and ticked off each question on his fingers.  "Captain Sheridan, bringing you back was Captain Picard's call.  Doctor Crusher is already back in sickbay, and since that comm-badge is sitting there by itself, I presume your fiend dropped it."

Sheridan's scowl deepened.  It'd been a while since anyone had questioned his judgment, and that was obviously just what Picard had done.  This was ten times worse than being questioned by a junior officer on a command decision – Picard was his equal in rank, and had not merely questioned his choices, but compromised his mission in the process.  He wanted answers.  He wanted an apology.  More importantly, he wanted to get back to Earth and show whoever'd fired at him and his people how big a mistake that had been.  Preparing to give Riker a taste of captainly wrath, he was interrupted by the hiss of the doors behind the man… and the person who came through them.

"Captain Picard, I demand an explanation for this, and it had better be good!" he belted out.

The older man stepped in front of Riker and went toe-to-toe with his counterpart, glaring fiercely when he said, "Captain, I thought I had made myself clear.  What were you thinking when you started firing off energy weapons down there?  I realize you were under fire, but the Temporal Prime Directive –"

"Doesn't apply to us!" Sheridan snapped.  "As for what I was thinking – I was thinking that we were being attacked, and that the lives of three people I was responsible for were in danger!  Including your own CMO… Captain."  He bit the word off, reminding himself that there was still work to be done.  "Right now, we're going back down there, and finishing what we started."

"Very well," Picard granted politely, though a muscle at his temple twitched in rhythm with his tightly controlled breaths.  "Next time, I'd appreciate it if you would be so kind as to answer a hail.  Chief Styles, transport Captain Sheridan and Mr. Garibaldi back to their original coordinates."

Sheridan's face reddened, realizing now what the muffled chirp from within his vest, compressed between his body and the ground, had been.  In the muted light of the transporter room though, his complexion simply appeared to grow ruddier.  Not that he was about to give Picard the satisfaction.

Garibaldi cleared his throat loudly.  "Hold on, I've got a better idea.  Uh… Captain.  Captain."  He squeezed past the two furious men, giving each a sidewise wary glance as he passed.  He didn't know too much about Picard yet, but he knew better than to be in the line of fire when Mount St. Sheridan cooked off.  Crossing to the transporter console, he tried to make sense of the readouts, but finally gave up.  Turning to the younger man behind the console, he asked, "Can you bring up an overhead view of where you picked us up from?  Styles, was it?"

"Yes sir."  A few motions that made no sense to Garibaldi followed, and several screens on the panel cleared away entirely, so that it could accommodate a larger window.  Within, Garibaldi could make out a line that could only be the railroad tracks, and with that as a reference, the train station, the warehouse ruins they'd sheltered in, and the woods beyond.  A series of moving dots showed in the town and surrounding woods, ranging in size from some the size of a pinhead, to some barely the size of a grain of sand.  The larger ones were clustered in the town buildings, one in the train stationhouse, three in the rubble, and one in the woods, right in the area where he expected the shooters were.

"What are those dots?" Garibaldi asked.  He had a pretty good idea, which was quickly confirmed.

"Animal life-forms, sir," the crewman replied.  "The larger the signature, the larger the life-form.  I can call those up in more detail, if you need that."

Garibaldi shook his head, ignoring the sudden silence that had fallen on the four other people in the room as they watched him, trying to guess what he was thinking.  "No, no, that's fine," he assured the transporter operator.  "Can you zoom in a little further?  Say, focus on that one there?"  The screen drew inwards quickly, and he held up a hand to stop it.  "That's perfect."  He then pointed at the lone prick of light in the forest.  "That's our guy then.  Can you put us down… here?" he gestured to a spot nearby that was further from the town, and deeper in the woods.

Styles nodded easily, saying, "Yes sir, not a problem."

Garibaldi startled the man by giving him a slap on the back, then he was crossing the small room back to the transporter pads.  "As much fun as this is," he said, taking his place back on the pad he'd arrived on, "we've got a Ranger to save, and butts that won't kick themselves."

"Captain, we'll discuss this further when you return," Picard said stiffly, the anger cooling after Garibaldi's interruption.

"Count on it," Sheridan shot back, still seething.

The transporter whisked them away before something Picard might have regretted later reached his lips.

*****

Suddenly back in the damp, chilly darkness that seemed to pervade this formerly sweltering portion of North Carolina, Garibaldi instinctively crouched low until his eyes once again readjusted themselves.  It was quicker this time, he noticed, between the low light in the transporter room, and the small fires still smoldering in the branches and thickets in front of him.  Sheridan, he could tell, was still obviously seething – there was no stealth or subtlety in his behavior this time around as he bulled ahead through the grasping greenery.  Hurrying to catch up to his erstwhile captain and charge, Garibaldi scanned the surrounding foliage as best he could manage at that pace, and involuntarily twitched at the normal night sounds that reached his ears.  He had no intention of allowing their assailants to get the drop on them just because Sheridan was in a bit of a pique.

As a result, once within the fading orange glow of the PPG-generated embers, only he heard the metallic hiss from a deeply shadowed thicket that Sheridan was nearly on top of.  "Captain, look out!" he warned urgently.

Preoccupied, but not totally inattentive, Sheridan's weapon swept up in a suddenly alert firing posture.  Garibaldi's own PPG was already at shoulder height in his outstretched hand, but the combination of the shadows, foliage, and Sheridan's body combined to block any shot he might have had at the object that suddenly lashed out from behind one of the trees and sent Sheridan's PPG flying from his hand.  It spun off just far enough to land out of sight – not that a staggered Sheridan would have noticed.

"Captain!"  Garibaldi lunged forward, smashing through the undergrowth with a rending crash that abruptly silenced the normal chirpings and buzzings of nocturnal insects and small animals.

"Captain?"  

A second metallic hiss followed, and Garibaldi placed the sound this time, lowering his PPG warily.

Marcus didn't so much step into the half-light as just appeared there.  "Ah, terribly sorry," he said to Sheridan, who was nursing a stinging right hand.  "No hard feelings I hope?"

Sheridan shook his hand and waggled his fingers experimentally before glancing up and smiling ruefully.  "I guess I was a little more distracted than I realized."  With his left hand, he reached into a pocket on his vest and withdrew a comm-badge.  "I think this is yours."

Shrugging, Marcus accepted the pin and tucked it into some pouch on his belt.  "At least Ranger brooches can stay where they belong in a bit of a tussle."  

"Did you see who was shooting at us?" Sheridan asked.  He picked out the metallic glint of his PPG amid the leaves on the ground, and stooped to recover it.

Marcus grimaced, and swept a hand across their rapidly darkening field of vision.  "'Fraid not.  It seems they didn't feel like waiting around.  I did find where they were sitting, but there's not so much as a footprint worth mentioning.  Whoever it was didn't want to be found out, that's for sure."

"Nuts."  Garibaldi irritably kicked at the ground.  "Captain," he said, turning to Sheridan, "this doesn't add up.  If something's going on here we're supposed to stop, how did we get found out that quickly?  No one but us is supposed to know we're even here.  But if they do know we're here, why this half-assed ambush?  Why not just take us out when we came off the train?  It doesn't add up."

"I don't have an answer for you, Michael," Sheridan softly replied, shaking his head.  He stared into the formless dark around them for a moment.  The fires were all but out now, and the brief light they cast was virtually gone, casting the three men into a gloom nearly as dense as that which surrounded them.  "C'mon," he said, marching back towards the faint lights of the town, "there's no point in standing around out here giving our friends out there a chance to finish the job."

Garibaldi grunted agreeably.  "So what's the plan now?"

"Well," Sheridan began, the outlines of just such a plan taking shape in his mind, "from what we heard up on the ship, it sounds as though one of our four tails was hit, and they brought him up there."  He hesitated, getting his bearings, and then picked out the ragged form of the rubble they'd been holed up in, and began picking his way purposefully towards it.  "That leaves three, and I don't know about you, but I want some answers."

*****

Nate Caudell swallowed hard, wringing his hat with two hands in the fading glimmer of light that had just swept away the strange red-haired woman, his friend, and most importantly, his wife.  It was too late for second thoughts now, but he knew his inaction would haunt and torment him for as long as he lived if Mollie didn't return.  Intellectually, he knew when she had her mind set on something, there was no way to dissuade her, and he knew also that her simple logic was impeccable, as usual.  Someone had to go with Ruffin Biggs to keep an eye on this new breed of Rivington man – Caudell just wished it had made less sense for that someone to be her.

Perched slightly above him on the gritty slope of ash, Henry Pleasants watched the hat go limp in the white-knuckled grip.  "I think it's dead, Nate," he said dryly.  He was still wide-eyed over the insubstantial sparkles that had spirited away three people right in front of his own face – to say nothing of what the woman calling herself Doctor Crusher had given as their destination.  Only after he'd spoken did he realize how callous he sounded, and winced sympathetically.  The other man never looked up, and Pleasants sighed.  "Look, Nate, you know I'm not one to go prying, but you can't start second-guessing yourself now.  Hell, I always knew there was something… out of place, about the Rivington men.  I was an engineer years before the war, and I never saw anything like those repeaters of theirs.  But a fancy gun is one thing, and a… well, whatever the hell that was… that's something else altogether."  

He knew he was babbling, but pressed on.  "The way I figure it, whoever that lady and her folks are, they've gotta be as far ahead of the Rivington men as the Rivington men are from us."  A sudden unpleasant image of a mounted medieval knight charging a modern battle line sprang into his head, and Pleasants' equally sudden shiver had nothing to do with the increasingly chilly night air.  "Point is, Nate," he continued, "this whole mess just got a whole helluva lot bigger, and one of us had to go with Ruffin – and frankly, I need you right here."  He paused uncertainly when Caudell finally looked up, and seemed to be processing some of what he was saying.  "You were – are – a First Sergeant, Nate.  During the war you must've given her orders that you knew could kill her, same as any of the men under your command.  Same as I did.  Same as any man higher ranking than a buck private.  This is the same thing."

Caudell's hollow eyes, nearly black in the deep shadows and night, finally focused on his friend's fervent face, and he shook his head spasmodically.  "No it ain't," he said it a voice barely above a whisper.  He looked as though he wanted to say more, but instead lapsed into a gloomy silence.  Pleasants was right of course – and he was also absolutely wrong.  Caudell _had _given Mollie orders that could have killed her, just as he had to other men in his company.  She hadn't been his wife then, and that made all the difference in the world.  He went back to studying the ground where she had been squatting, taking in the scuffed ground, the black smears of dried blood; even the small stones that had been dislodged by Crusher's movements to Ruffin's side caught his – 

A sharp, yet strangely muted sound reached his ear then, and of its own accord, his head cranked around to follow the noise.  It seemed to him like the sound of a person letting loose with a deep gasp at the same moment as spitting through a metal pipe.  The alien combination of sound was so out-of-place that it riveted his attention – both of their attentions he saw, glancing at Pleasants – to the source in front of them.

Wide-eyed, both of them watched as a whole volley of fireballs began hurling themselves from two flanking outcroppings, each accompanied by a repetition of the sound.  Within seconds, a portion of woods before them was alight with a series of small fires, the flickering light visible even through the afterimages of the fireballs.

Pleasants narrowed his eyes as the rain of fireballs cut off suddenly.  He'd nearly managed to convince himself that the impossible sparkling columns were merely some kind of incredible technology – but this was starting to get out of hand!  Silhouetted by the fires in the thick quiet that fell, a lone figure stood up from the ruins in front of them, rising silently from the ground.  It called out several times, and though Pleasants could not make out the words, it was obvious than the figure was not receiving the answer it clearly wanted.  And then it was gone.  Pleasants blinked to make sure, but there was no mistaking it – the three remaining time-travelers (for that was unmistakably what they had to be) had vanished right along with the gunman in the woods.

"Well," Caudell said at length, still nervously pale, "we won't get any answers just lying here in the dirt.  And right now," his voice turned harder, "I have a lot of questions."   


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Wondering what she'd gotten herself into, Mollie Caudell fixed her meanest stare – the kind that stopped grizzled soldier and tardy schoolboy alike in their tracks – on the woman with the strawberry blonde hair.  She futilely wished that she were armed, and briefly considered scooping a large rock off the ground.  She never found out whether she would have risked making a grab for one, because at that moment, her body was seized by an invisible force that felt like the hand of God.  She sucked in a breath to scream, and the world around her vanished in a haze of brilliant points of light.

Then nothing.

Mollie wasn't sure how long she actually spent in that senseless, timeless, place between here and there… only that so many jumbled and terrifying thoughts raced through her mind all at once that she tried once more to breathe, to scream, even to move.  But of course, there was nothing at all.  No air to breathe, no lungs to inhale, no mouth to scream, and no arms or legs to move.  She simply was.  Was she blind?  Was this death?  If so, was this limbo, or had the preachers all been wrong?  Did she still even exist?  She had once heard Nate use the phrase "I think, therefore I am."  She thought, but in the formless void that had swallowed her whole, "I think, therefore I'm dead" seemed equally as logical.  The emptiness beckoned, Mollie tried to scream once more… 

… and exhaled a great, shuddering breath into a world that suddenly existed once more.  With her senses returning, she realized that she could not have been in that place, if it was a place at all, for longer than a smattering of seconds, and already the memory of her terror was fading as fast as the tingling sensation on her skin.  Not trusting herself to move yet though, she took in what surroundings she could.

A noise assailed her ears, a mingling of voices and confusing mechanical birdsong, the likes of which she'd never heard before; beeps, whirrs, and chirping that all sounded somehow unnatural.  Before her was a wall in paneled shades of grey and beige, running along wholly unfamiliar contours, and reflecting the bright overhead light in a way that told her the materials were likewise something new.  There was something else, positioned between her and the wall at just above waist-height, which she tried to focus her gaze on.

That proved to be too much, and the shock of what was happening caught up with her suddenly.  Mollie's vision went grey and narrow, and her knees buckled.  She threw out her hands to catch herself, but it was a futile gesture in her stunned condition, and only a hand that caught her beneath one arm prevented her from cracking her head on the object in front of her.

"Easy, easy!"  The owner of the soft female voice behind Mollie remained maddeningly out of sight, but a firm grip turned her around slowly, and eased her backwards on to the strange object she'd seen, which she now recognized as some kind of table, or elevated bed.

Mollie sat only reluctantly, and then only because she was unable to stand.

The voice intruded once more, saying, "Just relax.  Put your head down and lean forward."  Once more a slim hand demonstrated by action, pushing her body forward until her head was down by her knees.  She resisted, but the person on the other end of that hand was strong enough to hold her there for the moment it took to recover her wits and her sight.  Her stomach rebelled at the brief sensation of vertigo, but she forced it down with a dry-throated swallow, simply glad that the gauzy grey haze over her vision was all but gone.

Sitting up, Mollie found herself face to face with a woman of almost her same height, although her raven black hair, elegant features, and gently slanted eyes draw most of Mollie's attention.  She had a clear memory of that Doctor Crusher standing in front of her when the transition happened, but there was no sign of her now.  "Who are you?" she asked uneasily, trying to get her bearings.

Alyssa Ogawa regarded her new patient sympathetically, and decided that a less formal introduction was in order.  The poor woman in front of her was shaking, and staring at her with eyes the size of saucers.  "I'm the head nurse here," she said, smiling reassuringly.  "My name's Alyssa.  What's yours?"

"M-Mollie Caudell," Mollie replied, trying to force herself to stop trembling.  It didn't work, and she felt a flash of embarrassment – what must she look like, a seasoned soldier acting like a frightened kitten in front of the exotic but unthreatening woman in the curiously silly black and grey one-piece jumpsuit?  This nurse was however easier to deal with than the tall, brash woman in Rivington who'd called herself a doctor.  Mollie had first-hand experience with nurses, male and female, but she could not recall ever hearing about a female surgeon.  _You're from the future!  Her own words came back suddenly, and she belatedly realized that she was finally discovering just what those outwardly ludicrous words actually meant._

Dimly, Mollie realized that Alyssa was asking her a question, but she had eyes only for the rest of the room she found herself in.  With the exception of a glass window into a smaller room, and a set of crimson doors that strangely had no knob or fastener, the rest of the room was walled in entirely by the same shades of grey and beige, placed at an angle that bulged the center of the wall outward, where a strip of flat black ran horizontally around the room.  She only recognized the doors for what they were, in fact, because as she watched, they pulled apart to allow a tall, slender man in the same type of jumpsuit to enter.  In a few places, black squares and rectangles were set into the panels, and on more than a few of those, she could make out what could only be letters and numbers moving of their own accord across the otherwise plain surfaces.  Lined up against the wall were several raised beds, each encrusted with flashing lights and metallic equipment that Mollie couldn't make heads or tails out of.  All but one of the beds was empty, and her view of that last was spoiled by several people's backs, one of which was clothed in a billowy sundress – Doctor Crusher, Mollie assumed.

The shaking had begun to subside, but with what she was seeing, it returned full force, along with a sickness in her stomach.  She had thought the Rivington men nearly magical when she first experienced some of their technology – the cool air during the summer months, their immaculately printed books with the color pictures, and their wireless telegraphs.  Now, a revelation washed over her like a hurricane wind.  If the Rivington men had come from some point in the future, these people had come from a far more distant time, wielding technology (for that was what she now understood it to be) so advanced that it made the wonders of Rivington seem mundane and petty.

A nearby voice brought her suddenly out of her daze, and she realized that Alyssa had been asking her a question.  She refocused her eyes on the woman, but found herself completely speechless.

The nurse waved a hand in front of her eyes, and repeated, "I said, how are you feeling?"

Mollie didn't think the tremors that still ran through her would ever subside now, but looking down at the concerned face in front of her, with its exotic features, she found her voice again.  "W-well enough."  An infinitesimal pause.  "Thank you kindly."  The last came out more meekly than she'd intended, and she recognized the lost, vulnerable tone she'd fallen into when Nate had taught her how to read by the dying glow of a campfire.  Then she remembered why she was here in the first place.  "Where's Ruffin?"

Alyssa Ogawa smiled reassuringly, guiding Mollie's gaze to the one occupied bed and the cluster of people that surrounded it, talking in low, hurried voices.  "You're friend's going to be fine.  The bullet only caught a fragment of the bone, and severed the femoral artery.  It was touch and go there for a moment, because of the amount of blood he lost, but Doctor Crusher is the best in the Fleet."  A touch of pride lit her face at that last comment, but Mollie hardly noticed.

She didn't understand everything the nurse had said, but the import sank home quickly enough.  The fact that he would survive was the final proof in Mollie's mind that these people were really who they said they were: she'd seen wounds far less severe than Ruffin's kill men before, either through bleeding or infection.  Those who survived similar wounds nearly always left one of their limbs behind, and Mollie shuddered, remembering the recovery from the much lighter wound she'd taken at Gettysburg.  It had kept her out of the third day's murderous charge, but that had brought no comfort lying on the ground amid the heat and the stink and the insects, trying to make sure that no surgeon accidentally uncovered her true identity.  She brought herself out of that bitter memory with a mental shake, and tried to imagine how they could have replaced a person's blood, or how they could operate so quickly that they were nearly finished less than ten minutes after arriving in this place: then gave up when her imagination proved unequal to the challenge.

"Is there anything ya'll cain't fix?"  Mollie didn't mean to start making a bother of herself, but there were some things she just had to know.  And besides, these people, whoever they were, seemed far more open and friendly than any of the Rivington me she'd gotten to know.  Even so, she didn't intend to push her luck – or their patience.

Alyssa's smile widened, although it was tinged with a faint edge of sardonic humor.  "There are plenty of things we still haven't quite gotten a handle on yet, I'm afraid."  That was true enough, as far as it went, though she forbore mentioning that most of those were unheard of in this time and place.

Mollie still looked skeptical.  After all of these miracles, she found it hard to believe that _these _surgeons would ever leave behind a pile of limbs after a battle, and said as much.

Now the nurse grimaced, her face growing more disturbed as Mollie explained what she had seen of the field hospital in Pennsylvania, and the agonizing return to Virginia, first aboard a lurching ambulance, and then marching with her arm pinned up by her own bedroll.  Normally, she would never have considered talking about her time in the army with anyone but Nate and the other survivors of the 47th North Carolina, but between the incredible things she was witnessing, and the ease the nurse seemed to possess with that brash woman who called herself a doctor, she took the plunge with a mental shrug.

"We're well beyond that, I can assure you," Alyssa said, recovering her smile.  "In fact, as far as I know, there is only one crewmember here that has ever required an amputation.  If you would like, I could even remove that scar on your arm."

Mollie blinked, taking that in.  Unconsciously, her left hand rose to her right arm, and began fingering the sleeve just above the still-livid crease in her bicep left by a Minie-ball.  She considered the offer briefly, only slightly surprised to find just how much she actually believed in what was happening, before dismissing the idea.  The scar no longer ached, and now, she found that she considered it almost a badge of honor.  While so many other women had sat at home with their knitting needles and lace handkerchiefs, she had been right on the front lines.  Mollie knew there had to be others like her… but they were a select group, and she preferred to keep that proof, even if she wouldn't be allowed the satisfaction of admitting it openly in her own time.

Though she was extremely curious as to how the woman had known about it, seeing as it was hidden beneath the sleeve of her uniform tunic.   

Then something Alyssa said struck a chord in her conscious mind, and she frowned.  She had to think a little more than usual to make sense of the way the nurse spoke and it took a moment to understand some of what she said.  "Crewmember?" she asked, feeling that sick sensation returning.  The trembling had slowed to almost nothing, but now it returned in force.  "Where are we?"

"Ah, I take it that Beverly – sorry, Doctor Crusher – didn't explain much to you?"  The nurse clucked her tongue disapprovingly, though Mollie got the distinct impression that she wasn't surprised.  Then giving her full attention back to her patient, continued, "We're aboard a ship called the Enterprise.  We didn't intend to –"

"A ship?" Mollie interrupted.  She had only been aboard a ship once, crossing the James River after the 47th North Carolina mustered almost a decade ago, and found that this was almost more difficult to accept than those things that she could not understand.  "Miss Alyssa, I've seen some mighty peculiar things, but I've never yet heard the likes of a ship that didn't feel like riding an angry mule.  And I surely never did see the boat big enough to hold a room like this!"

Ogawa winced and stifled a sigh.  This explanation promised to take some time.  The sickbay comm chimed then, drawing a startled twitch from Mollie, whose nerves hadn't quite settled yet.

"Bridge to Sickbay," a hollow, even voice said from nowhere, "medical team to Transporter Room Three, possible casualties are enroute."

The nurse cringed, half expecting the frightened woman in front of her to leap head first into the ceiling, and was pleasantly surprised when Mollie only glanced about wide-eyed, and murmured, "Wireless telegraph," to herself.

"Alyssa," Crusher called from across the room with a harried shout, "Take a medical team to Transporter Room Three, we may have more wounded."

Ogawa nodded an acknowledgement, suddenly all business, and called out sharp commands to several of the people in the big room, while Mollie looked on wide-eyed as men and women alike rushed to obey the diminutive nurse.  That simple fact, more than anything else, banished the last traces of doubt from her mind.

"Doctor, I'll need someone to watch Mrs. Caudell," Ogawa announced over the sudden ruckus she'd created.

Crusher scrubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand, and glanced around swiftly, clearly still focused on the immediate patient before her.  "Doctor Bashir!  Take over for Nurse Ogawa; she's needed in the transporter room right now."

The slim, dark-haired man Mollie had seen enter the room a few moments earlier now stepped into view once more, flashing her a friendly smile as he replied, "Not a problem, Doctor Crusher.  I came up here in the first place because I guessed that anything interesting happening would happen on this ship first.  It's developed quite the reputation, you know."

The amused snort that came from Crusher might have been a reply, but Bashir waved it off cheerfully, turning to his new patient.  Alyssa Ogawa was already sprinting out through the sliding doors with three equipment-laden crewmen scurrying right behind.

"So, what do you think of the twenty-fourth century so far?" Bashir asked, still smiling.

Mollie shook her head slowly.  "I don't rightly know, Doc, but then, I haven't seen all that much of it, have I?  Alyssa said this was a ship, but I never heard about a ship big enough to hold a room like _this_… and that ain't talking about what's outside that door, neither.  Or why it ain't swaying all fit to make a body sick."

Bashir cocked an eyebrow inquisitively.  "Swaying?"  Then what she was talking about clicked, and his mouth dropped open.  "Oh."  His jaw continued to move soundlessly for a few seconds.  _Now how do they expect you to explain this __to her, Julian?  When he saw that she was still waiting expectantly for an explanation, he began, "Ah… well, it's like this…"_

"Bridge to Doctor Bashir," the comm unit chimed suddenly.  He wasn't familiar with too many of the Enterprise's crew, so he couldn't identify the voice, but the thought was the same.  _Saved by the bell… err, buzzer._

"Bashir here," he replied, rolling his eyes for effect at the way that sounded, and drawing a muffled snort of laughter from Mollie.

"Doctor, report to Transporter Room Three for an away team assignment."

Turning away from the biobed, Bashir surveyed the room quickly, and sighed.  He guessed that with Crusher still up here, they wanted another doctor on the away mission, and that meant him.  But that still left the matter of his new patient.  He couldn't simply leave her unattended, and yet every technician and nurse he could see appeared to be already occupied.  For the time being, the only qualified doctors aboard any of the ships in their small fleet were he and Beverly Crusher; Doctor Selar, he'd heard, had taken a position with the Vulcan Academy of Medicine when the previous Enterprise was destroyed.

Of course, to be very technical, there was one more qualified medical doctor he could call on, though he didn't expect Crusher to be happy about it.  On the other hand, that brief summons from the bridge was delivered in precisely that atonal voice that told him that they expected him down in the transporter room ten minutes ago.  _Oh well, I'll be out of here before __Beverly_ notices.  _"Computer," he said with an air of resignation.  "Activate Emergency Medical Hologram."_

The air before him wavered for an instant, and was suddenly occupied by a bald, striking man in a medical uniform.  "Please state the nature of the medical emergency," it said by rote.  He thought he heard a faint thump from behind him.

"No emergency," Bashir said, "I just need you to look after a patient for me."

The vacant expression on the hologram's face vanished immediately, replaced by something that could only be called exasperated.  "I'm a doctor, not a nursemaid," it protested.

Bashir pointedly ignored it, turning back to the biobed.  "Mollie, this is…" he trailed off, staring at the body lying horizontally across the surface.

The EMH sniffed, observing, "She's fainted.  Obviously a testament to your superior medical skills."

Bashir's customary smile soured.  "Then she'll be that much easier to keep an eye on.  I suppose even you can manage that."  He ignored the EMH's indignant squawk, and took a moment to study the tattered, travel-stained butternut rags Mollie wore.  Hoping that whatever disguise Commander Data devised for his use would be in at least a slightly better state, Julian Bashir swerved through the room at a jog, and slipped between the double doors before they'd fully opened.

*****

Beverly Crusher sank back against the maroon cushions of the small couch in Captain Picard's ready room, and heaved a tired sigh as she brushed sweat-dampened strands of hair out of her eyes.  His request for her to 'drop by' after she'd finished in sickbay had been informal enough, but she'd known him long enough to detect more than a trace of urgency in his tone.  As a result, she'd only stopped at her quarters long enough to grab a speedy sonic shower, and to change back into her uniform.  She may have had to perform surgery in that ungainly contraption of cloth and wire, but Crusher was damned if she'd parade through the bridge in it.

From behind his desk, Picard glanced up as she entered unannounced, took in her disheveled condition, and swallowed the first thing he'd intended to say as being rather… undiplomatic, under the circumstances.  Instead, he rallied with, "My word, Beverly, you look like you just ran the Janus VI marathon."

The glower she turned on him convinced him that his second choice of words was no better than the first.  "Err… Can I get you something?" he asked with a placating gesture to his own steaming mug.

Crusher made him weather her basilisk gaze for another long moment before finally relenting.  "Anything cold and wet," she said.  "How about a nice…" she started to say "lemonade," and then her doctor's mind cruelly began listing some of the various things that may well have been living in the last glass of lemonade she'd had, and she swallowed hard, finishing, "iced tea."

Picard gave the command, and passed the frosted glass across his desk as soon as it finished materializing.

The first sip was a cool haven from the sweltering reality of moments before, and Crusher had to restrain herself somewhat forcefully from draining the entire glass at once.  "Thank you, Jean-Luc," she said after a beat.  "I'm sure you didn't call me up here just to offer me a drink, though.  Let's hear it."

Turning to look at the stars outside of his ready room window, and the crescent of the moon that dominated it, Picard elected not to mince words.  "I want to know what really happened down there, Beverly.  I'm afraid my handling of the situation was less than stellar, and I can't be sure of that much until I know what happened down there."

Crusher nodded understandingly.  _Ah.  _"You gave Captain Sheridan a hard time, didn't you?"

Picard sighed, and his frown deepened.  He should have been used to having Beverly Crusher see right through him, and on occasions, it was welcome to have a friend like that; but it was still damned inconvenient at times.  "I may have overreacted slightly," he hedged.

"You read him the riot act," Crusher translated.

"Which is why I wanted to find out what really happened down there, from you."

"Fair enough."  Crusher sipped from her glass and shrugged.  "I didn't see everything, of course; I did have a patient to deal with, if you recall.  I'll include all of the rest in my detailed report, but it happened a little while after we reached Rivington.  It was dark by then, but right after leaving the train platform, we spotted the ruins just outside of the town itself."

"Ruins?"  Picard's interest was piqued by that word more than any other.  It was the archeologist in him, and he pushed it aside with some effort, to remain focused on the task at hand.

Crusher shook her head.  "Your guess is as good as mine.  Better probably, but you didn't see them, and I did.  If I had to speculate, I'd say they had been storage depots of some kind.  Warehouses maybe, or barns, even.  But there was plenty of wreckage around."  Her eyes narrowed in concentration as she remembered something.  "Mr. Garibaldi did find one piece that he thought was especially important.  Captain Sheridan was also rather excited if I recall.  There was printing on one board, which said something about ready-to-eat food, or something like that."

Picard frowned at that, both in annoyance that she hadn't remembered a possibly important clue, but mostly because in this day and age, that simply sounded… wrong.  Unfortunately, his knowledge of history, while formidable, was spread across dozens, perhaps hundreds of worlds, and what part of that resided on Earth was limited primarily to the events following the Third World War, and he was forced to set that aside.

"I checked my tricorder then, to see if I could pick out anything useful that might be a bit underground."  Now Crusher merely looked sheepish.  "Unfortunately, I'd brought a medical tricorder – not quite what I needed down there, as it turns out.  But I did locate two life signs in the woods nearby, just outside of town.  That struck me as unusual, so I pointed it out to Captain Sheridan.  That's when Mr. Garibaldi tackled me.  The both of us, I should say," she corrected hastily when Picard swung his seat back around to stare at her.  "I don't know how, but he must have heard the shots coming before the rest of us.

"However he did it, I can't fault his speed," she went on.  "Whoever was shooting at us with those slug throwers must have been dampening the sound somehow.  One of the people following us wasn't so lucky, and I just finished patching up the hole in his leg.  I pointed out their locations to Captain Sheridan, but no more than a few seconds later, I lost them."

"Lost them, Beverly?  I thought you said you located them on your tricorder?"

Crusher loosed an explosive, exasperated breath.  "I had!  One moment they were there, right on the screen, and the next…"  She shrugged, and raised her hands, left palm up, the right still grasping the glass she was still nursing.  "I lost them.  They were still there – the shooting went on for at least a few more minutes while I crawled over to our newest sickbay resident, but I couldn't spot them on the tricorder any longer.

"It was while I was making contact with our new friends down there, that Captain Sheridan must've begun firing in the direction I'd shown them."

Picard's frown had turned into a chiseled fissure on his face at this point in the narrative, and the cords in his neck were tightening.  "Beverly, that is a clear violation of the Prime Directive."

Crusher's mouth opened, and she inhaled, suddenly realizing what must have happened.  "He didn't tell you, because he didn't know yet.  He wasn't answering his comm-badge, so I couldn't tell him before I beamed out…"  She was talking to herself now, putting the pieces together.  "… and even if I had told him…"  Now she turned fully on the captain.  "Of course.  When you had him beamed up suddenly, he took it as a challenge to his authority on the away mission, and then you no doubt chewed him out like a junior lieutenant who'd just crashed your personal yacht."  She shook her head again, but this time the motion was simply born of understanding.

"The Prime Directive doesn't apply any longer," she told a startled Jean-Luc Picard with absolute certainty in her every word.  "Jean-Luc, these people have already been interfered with.  There's a girl down in sickbay right now who knows where we're from!"       


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter 14:

With the sole source of light once more reduced to the feeble illumination of banked lanterns and windowsill candles from the town beyond the rubble, picking a path out of the woods was a slow and cautious matter. Garibaldi held his flashlight at the ready, but off, to avoid giving away their position to the very people they were looking for.

Listening to the racket they were making as they moved back toward the town, Sheridan doubted just how necessary that was. Between the underbrush they were pushing through, and the long-dead branches and twigs crunching and snapping under their feet, he had no illusions about taking anyone by surprise.

Sure enough, the moment they stepped out of the trees, he became aware of a pair of dark silhouettes standing directly between them and the town, perhaps fifty yards away. Sheridan stopped, waiting to see if they would make the first move, but they simply stood there silently. He took a step forward, and when there was still no reaction, another, and another.

Beside and slightly behind him, Garibaldi hissed, "Captain, you sure this is such a good idea?" His hand was hovering pointedly over his holster.

"Probably not," Sheridan admitted in a taut whisper, glancing marginally over his shoulder. Marcus was suddenly nowhere to be seen, he noticed from the corner of his eye. "They had plenty of chances to attack us on the way here," he reminded the security chief in the same whisper.

"Don't remind me," Garibaldi muttered back at a barely audible volume. "Let's hope they haven't changed their minds."

"After the light show we just put on? Not a chance."

Garibaldi was about to make a comment about how twitchy the captain was looking, but was interrupted when the figure in the lead spoke suddenly, his voice startlingly loud in the silence that had reigned since the end of the gun battle.

"That's far enough." It was too dark to make out any details of the speaker's features, but they could see that one of his hands was buried within a pocket on the inside of his overcoat.

Garibaldi spotted the slight movement instantly, and his fingers twitched convulsively, only millimeters from his PPG. "Captain, he's armed," he breathed.

"I see it," Sheridan replied in a faint murmur. Making sure to keep his hands visible, and to make no sudden movements, he called out, "You've been following us for most of the day," he said clearly, making sure the other man understood that it wasn't a question. "Mind telling us why?"

"No," the other replied in a decidedly non-Southern twang, after a moment's thought. "But first, maybe you won't mind telling us just what the hell kind of guns those are, who you are, and where your other friend is."

Sheridan pursed his lips in concentration, trying to decide where to begin, and more importantly, how to do it without getting into another shooting match. "All right, to answer your last question first, let's just say that he's… around. As for who we are…" he trailed off with a throaty chuckle, trying to figure out how he was going to explain this.

The scrap of wood they'd found in the rubble told him that these people must have had some kind of experience with time travelers, which in turn made clear why history had been tossed so completely out the window. But they'd also plainly never seen anything like a PPG before, which made the whole situation both easier and more difficult to explain. On one hand, it meant that they might believe him about when he came from – but judging by the condition of the old warehouses, their last experience had not been an entirely positive one, and even if they believed the when of his story, they might not be inclined to believe the who, how, or why of it.

Electing finally to keep it simple, he said, "My name's John Sheridan. And this," he nodded slowly, tilting his head, "is Michael Garibaldi. We're not looking for a fight."

The other man relaxed his alert posture, and as his hand slipped away from the pocket in his vest, Garibaldi's restless hand also settled within inches of his PPG, though he was confused about the other man's reaction, given that he still clutched the small boxy shape of his flashlight in his other hand. It was as if the guy wasn't worried about it at all.  

"I'm Colonel Henry Pleasants, and this here's First Sergeant Nate Caudell," the stranger said with a gesture to each of them. "That's Army of the Confederacy, Mr. Sheridan, supposing for the moment that that is your real name."

"It is."

Pleasants nodded in a considering manner, beginning to walk forward. Sheridan took that as a sign that their standoff was over, and took his own measured strides forward, until they met in the middle of the small glade between the ruins and the edge of the forest.

"I'll tell you what, Sheridan," Henry announced as they drew to within a few feet, "You tell me where you're from, and why you're here, and if I like what I hear, maybe we'll answer your questions."

Sheridan didn't care for the sound of that, but he realized how badly they needed more information, and these two looked like they might have it. "All right," he agreed. The way Garibaldi stiffened beside him told him more than he needed to know about what his security chief thought of _that. He just hoped Marcus would be patient enough to hold still for a few moments longer._

Clearing his throat, and going out on the longest, thinnest limb available, he began, "I'm Captain John Sheridan," – Garibaldi exhaled noisily – "this is Chief Warrant Officer Michael Garibaldi, and we are from… the future. The year 2260, in fact." His memory skipped over everything that was happening: Q, Babylon 4, Junior, alternate realities, Picard and his ships from even further ahead in another future… _Better keep it simple_, he told himself. "We are…"

The thought was never completed, because Henry Pleasants suddenly whooped and shouted, "I knew it!" Oddly, from Sheridan's perspective, he was staring at his companion as he said it. "I knew it!" he repeated excitedly. "There was no way in hell you Rebs coulda designed a brand new 30-shot repeater and build enough for all of your armies with those guild shops you call factories!"

"At the time, Henry," Caudell explained with a sidelong glance at their audience, "we didn't much think about it. They were better than any old Springfield, but hell, none of us were engineers like you. I didn't know a thing about when they came from 'till afterward, and didn't much care, either. They let us outshoot you Yanks, and that's all that mattered to us."

"That's all that mattered to us too," Pleasants replied with uncharacteristic venom. He pushed that aside suddenly with a shake of his head. "Sorry Nate, I didn't mean it like that… but… aw hell, we'll talk about that later. No need to go dragging up the past now."

Caudell nodded in silent agreement, turning his full attention back to the two people in front of him. "Go on, Mr. Sheridan, you were saying?"

Sheridan's face screwed up in a skeptical frown. "Thirty shot repeater?" he said, neatly deflecting the original question.

"What's so special about that?" Garibaldi asked at his elbow. "I think they used to have slug throwers that could spit out hundreds, even thousands of rounds a minute."

"Not so much special as _impossible, Mr. Garibaldi. During the Civil War, the main infantry weapon of the day was a muzzle-loading percussion-cap rifle," Sheridan explained, dropping into a lecturing tone. "Breach-loading guns were so new that only a handful of units got them – cavalry mostly – and those few actual repeating weapons were restricted to a handful of shots, and were extremely expensive. Nothing at all should have been able to shoot thirty shots."_

"Civil War?" Pleasants repeated. Caudell shushed him quickly, knowing he had a lot of things that he needed to explain to his friend later.

Garibaldi's lip curled in an unpleasant smile, suddenly understanding. "So you think someone's been screwing with the past. You said that much when we were crammed in the back of that damned wagon."

"I've known that much since I saw the date on that newspaper. But now," Sheridan stated with a grim nod, "I know how things were changed.

"The only question now," he added, "is who did it, and why."

To the surprise of three of the men in the clearing, and one who was cloaked in the shadows out of sight but within earshot, it was Nate Caudell who answered. Pleasants had been the dominant force in the conversation since they'd met, and Sheridan hadn't paid much attention to his smaller and quieter friend. "If you even need to ask a question like that, you might just be who you've been saying you are," Caudell said quietly. "I don't know all the details o'course. They don't tell us sergeants more than we need to know. But I do know that it was early in '64, still winter out, when a big ole' wagon load of boxes pulled up by our camp. We'd heard some rumors, but nothing much, since we were some of the first to get 'em. Big feller up on top, wearing this green and brown splotches getup, by the name of Benny Lang, he gets down and starts passing out crates. He was a strange character, sure as hell. Almost as tall as you are," he recalled, gesturing to Sheridan, who was aware not for the first time of his own towering height relative to everyone he'd met so far in this time.

"Bigger though," Caudell went on. "Meanest sonofabitch I've ever met, when he wanted to be. Just to make a point, he stretched out one big lout from our company with his bare hands – not that Billy didn't have it coming, by God," Caudell said reflexively, and with an air of perverse satisfaction. "Then Benny Lang goes and starts bringing out the crates. Well, we open them up, and there's the repeaters, tucked in neat as can be. He showed us how to fire 'em, clean 'em, and strip 'em, then he moved on to the next regiment. I hear one of those boys stopped at every brigade in the division that same day. And then the next division and the next, until we all had 'em. And the word is, every last one came from right here."

Garibaldi was having flashbacks on the story Beverly Crusher had told them during the walk to Rocky Mount. He still found the idea that a single book could cause so much change to be somewhat far-fetched… but a hundred thousand automatic weapons a century more advanced than they should be – now that was concrete. The fact that it was Earth, and not some nameless little planet in another dimension, only heightened the impact.

Caudell went on with his story, keenly aware of the reactions it was generating among his small audience. "A few weeks later, the orders came down, and we moved out towards the Wilderness. A month after that, Marse Robert had us in Washington." He shrugged, adding, "With all of that, we figured on 'em being the sort we could count on. Guess we got shown otherwise."

Sheridan shook his head, trying to fit what he was being told with what he'd learned of the period in his own century. "So everything went the same as our history until 1864. Then these people showed up with a supply of weapons from the future…"

"AK-47's," Caudell supplied.

The term meant nothing to Sheridan, but Garibaldi whistled uneasily. History wasn't his forte, but weapons were, and a few of the more effective designs he'd learned of had stayed with him. "These men then," Sheridan continued, "brought enough for every army in the Confederacy, and it was enough to let you win the war."

"Unreal," Pleasants breathed, wagging his head slowly from side to side. He'd guessed as much ever since the battle for Rivington, but to have suspicions like that _confirmed_ was… well, unreal was as gentle a way to describe it as any.

"That's about the size of it," Caudell answered, his own head hanging. As much as he'd have loved to insist that the Army of Northern Virginia could have gone on to nothing but victory, he had known otherwise for years, courtesy of a history book that would never be published now.

"I take it everything didn't go entirely smoothly after that." Garibaldi's voice was droll, his eyes pointedly scanning the ramshackle buildings of the town where all of this had supposedly begun.

Caudell chuckled shallowly. "You might just say that," he admitted, following Garibaldi's gaze for a moment. "I don't have the whole story, you understand. I expect only Marse Robert and a few others actually do. But I can put two and two together, so I'm guessing it was manumission that stuck in their craw."

Looking sidelong at Sheridan, Garibaldi mouthed, _Marse Robert?_

Sheridan nodded slightly. "Robert E. Lee."

"President Lee," Caudell corrected, having caught the exchange. "I never did see anyone else who treated darkies that bad," he continued. "Lots of folks think they're better than 'em, but those boys actually _hated _'em." A sudden image flashed into his head of the mulatto wench Josephine begging for Caudell to hide her somehow… and the news that she'd later hanged herself to escape the Rivington men, and Caudell spit angrily into the dirt. "So when Marse Robert said he was gonna free all the slaves, lots of people got themselves all riled up – but the Rivington men, they tried to assassinate him at his own inauguration. Killed a few damn fine people trying, too, including Mrs. Lee." He paused, swallowing the pain generated by that death, remembering how Mary Lee had sat outside her Richmond home during the mustering out to bestow lemonade and pastries on the lines of battle weary soldiers returning from the front. In the days after the assassination attempt, not a few former soldiers had volunteered to "interrogate" the assassins and any other Rivington men they could have gotten their hands on.

Henry Pleasants filled the void in the conversation then; finishing the story with what he'd experienced himself. "The Rivington men had been supporters of Lee's opponent, General Forrest, during the election. Even Forrest had too many morals for that… when Lee shook out a few brigades to take this town, Forrest took command, and whipped 'em good."

"No small thanks to that big goddamned hole you blew in their lines, Henry," Caudell pointed out, his humor returning in some measure.

Pleasants grinned at that, visibly preening. "Well, I'm sure that helped some," he said with transparently false modesty.

Caudell let fly an amused snort, returning the smile faintly. He grew more serious, turning back to Sheridan and Garibaldi, still giving them a suspicious look. It wasn't that he thought they could possibly be Rivington men anymore, but between their nearly magical technology and the fact that they had spirited Mollie and Ruffin away to wherever they had come from, he wasn't ready to trust them just yet. "Now that we're all acquainted, Captain Sheridan, I'd sure like to know your story. Where… when, rather, did you come from, and just why are you picking around this particular town? Seems mighty convenient to me."

Sheridan's own smile was crooked and half-hearted. _How the hell am I supposed to explain this whole mess when I don't even understand the half of it myself? _he wondered miserably. _Better keep it simple. "Actually, we're here for almost the same reasons you are," he started slowly, working out his story in his own mind. "We have… information that these 'Rivington men' as you call them may have returned. And after what you've told us, I'd say that they aren't likely to have your best interests at heart. The long and short of it is that we're here to stop them."_

Pleasants clucked his tongue thoughtfully. "Say we believe you for the moment," he allowed. "That leaves a few questions. Right off, let's start with why."

"Why…" Sheridan bit his lower lip. "To tell you the truth, I don't understand it all myself."

"Then tell us what you do know," Caudell replied. "You call that other friend of yours out here, and we'll take you where we think we'd best be looking. It's a mile or so from here, so on the way, you're going to tell your story. All of it."

Holding up a hand, Pleasants warned, "Hold up there, Nate. You're still not armed yourself, and if the Rivington men really are back, we'll need to fix that quick. I think the President must have been expecting this sooner or later: there's a guard post not too far from where their houses are, and we should be able to pick up some rifles there. Our new friends here seem to be armed just fine, but we need more firepower." He was rapidly slipping back into the rhythm of command, and the orders were coming faster, and with more authority now. And one thing he was sure of, the oak leaves and triple stars that had once adorned his shoulders gave him that right. "Captain Sheridan, you and your people are with us as of right now. We're going in purely to investigate, and if we find anything fishy, I'll wire Forrest. On the way, you'll…" He stopped cold, hearing an impatient cicada-like chirp from Sheridan's vest, and regarded the man coolly with a questioning eye.

The sound, which had been inaudible under the racket and hiss of PPG-fire, carried easily enough even over the drone of real cicadas and the chitter of katydids in the grass and trees around them, and Sheridan grimaced. He could only guess what Picard wanted to bawl at him for now, and withdrawing the small pin slowly from its pocket, pressed it as he'd been shown, and barked, "Sheridan, go."

The voice that came back was not Picard's, and it took him a moment to recognize Commander Data's even tones. "Captain, Doctor Crusher reports that her patient will recover, but that she will be sending Doctor Bashir down in her place. Please advise when the opportunity for a transport presents itself."

Glancing briefly at the two men in front of him, Sheridan finally nodded to himself. _What the hell. They've already seen it once, and they know almost as much as I do. _"Now's fine," he said, and scarcely had he finished speaking before a column of energy materialized only feet away.

Caudell gasped, but Pleasants only slipped his hand uneasily into his tunic beside the holstered pistol, turning a weapon designed a century after his birth into his most secure contact with reality.

The cascading wash of bright particles faded almost immediately, leaving behind a darker complexioned man struggling to pull his remaining boot onto his foot. Bashir took stock of the situation quickly as he laced it up, dryly observing, "I take it we're playing fast and loose with the Prime Directive? Again?"

"Well it's certainly about time," a clipped English accent noted with some asperity. Sheridan hadn't even seen the man move – and judging by their reactions, neither had anyone else – but Marcus was suddenly standing to his left, looking as though he'd never been anywhere else. "I was beginning to think we'd be standing around all night just chit-chatting." He gestured grandly with his cloak, and half-bowed to no one in particular. "Shall we finally be off, then?"  

Garibaldi opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it, and turned to Pleasants, waving one hand at the black forest. "Lead on."

The trek through the woods was a short one compared to their earlier travels, perhaps a mile along a relatively level road bed. To Sheridan's surprise, despite the obvious disuse of the trail, it was far smoother than the ones they'd hiked in the vicinity of Nashville. The crushed limestone pounded into the dirt was only beginning to lose a battle with encroaching weeds and in the uncertain illumination of the flashlights carried by Garibaldi and Bashir, the path shone a ghostly white in the chilly, clammy night. The lights of the town of Rivington had already been lost in the trees behind them as the road weaved between solid ranks of invisible tree trunks.

The group moved slowly, taking the distance at an easy walk. Garibaldi and Doctor Bashir had taken positions to either side, using their flashlights to spot the minor obstacles in the road before someone could stumble over one. Somewhere up in the darkness in front of them, Sheridan knew, Marcus Cole was gliding through the trees well off the road itself. The Ranger had been the logical choice to take point; had insisted upon it, in fact, if only (in his own words) so he wouldn't have to listen to Sheridan "try to explain this bloody mess all over again."

And that was what he found himself doing. He hardly understood it all himself, suspected that even Picard was at something of a loss, and now was attempting to relate as much of the story as he knew to two people with a frame of reference four centuries out of date. From another dimension.

And they believed it.

He could tell that Caudell was skeptical. The Confederate First Sergeant was peppering him with questions that were more pointed than he'd anticipated, some of which he had no good answer for, just yet. Pleasants was an odd contrast though; he's seemed outspoken enough when they'd met, but as they trudged through the gloom, he kept to his own counsel, listening intently, but saying nothing. The man was enigmatic at best, an obvious Northerner calling himself a Confederate colonel, and he struck Sheridan as being quietly shrewd. Garibaldi plainly didn't trust him, and Sheridan had to remind himself rather forcefully that Garibaldi didn't trust _anyone until they'd proven themselves._

Unnervingly though, neither man seemed completely lost by his narrative, even in places where he himself had to fight down wonder and anxiety. Of course, he couldn't actually prove that they did believe him: but in his time on Babylon 5, dealing with dozens of shifty, sometimes obtuse ambassadors, he considered himself something of a good judge of character. He didn't believe these two were just humoring his crazy ramblings, just as he had found that he'd believed Picard's wild tale back in his office only a few days ago.

As Sheridan wrapped up his story, Pleasants finally spoke. "Captain, do you have any idea how that all sounds?"

The former Earthforce officer could only shake his head and laugh, recalling Garibaldi's adamant protests about Picard, which only really ended after he'd been rescued by the man and his impossible ship. "Oh, I have a pretty good idea."

"That's good," Pleasants replied conversationally, "because if I didn't know better, I'd say that'd you stopped off for some of the local moonshine on the way here." He shook his own head in turn, then extended an index finger towards a faint light just becoming visible through the foliage on their left. "If I'm not mistaken, that's the place we're looking for."

He led them off the road and into the woods along a faint, rutted path, little more than a deer trail really, which ended after a few dozen yards at the front door of a small cabin where tallow lanterns shone dull yellow from the window sills.

"No sentries?" Garibaldi asked, his left hand inching back to his PPG holster.

"I don't see any," Caudell said uneasily. "Do you think the Rivington men found this place already, Henry?"

"And left the lights on for us?" Pleasants asked rhetorically. He reached out, and twisting the brass knob, pushed the door open.

The handsomely dressed officer sitting at a desk within, feet propped up on the surface, promptly fell backwards out of his chair with an indignant yelp. Four men seated before a cheerfully crackling fire in a small stone hearth glanced up from their poker game, expressions ranging from annoyed to malicious glee at the officer's expense. None of them made a move for a weapon, for which Garibaldi was grateful. His left hand relaxed slightly.

Hauling his considerable girth out of his chair, and climbing off the floor with as much dignity as he could muster, the officer in the neatly pressed slate-grey uniform glowered at the intruders darkly. "Now just see here! This area is strictly off-limits to civilians! Explain yourselves!"

Picking out the single gold star on the man's collar, Henry Pleasants took a firm step forward, working up the most ferocious scowl he could manage – with Rivington men uppermost on his mind, it was no mean effort – and made a point of critically surveying the room. He took in the fat sputtering officer, the four poker players, the uniform jackets tossed casually across the bunks in the corner, and the obvious smell of moonshine whiskey in a single, disapproving glance.

"Someone's going to have some explaining to do," Pleasants intoned, "but it won't be me. You obviously aren't up to your duties, so I'll be requisitioning the weapons I need." Aware that they were about to have a run-in with a fresh batch of Rivington men – the same Rivington men who'd tried to assassinate the President, and who'd held off an entire division under Forrest for the better part of a month – he decided it wouldn't hurt to bring along as much muscle as he could manage, from wherever he could get it. "Your men too, Major."

The other man had gone livid as the sound of Pleasants' obviously Pennsylvanian accent reached his ears, but when his muddled brain finally picked out the substance of what he was being told, his face turned the color of an undercooked side of roast beef. "You will do no such thing!" he bellowed in a quavering voice. "You're on Army property, Yankee. I can have you shot as spies!"

On Pleasant's right side, Caudell took a deliberate step forward, mimicked by Garibaldi on the Colonel's left, and Sheridan's towering height in the doorway behind them.

Henry Pleasants held up a warning hand though, and slowly crossed to the desk, withdrawing a folded piece of paper from a coat pocket. Without a word, he passed it to the rotund blusterer in the fancy uniform. 

Caudell recognized the telegram at once, and relaxed, fighting a nasty grin. Officers like this one, who'd probably spent the war in a cushy quartermaster's depot fifty miles from the nearest fighting were a pox on the Army, he thought. They didn't know how to fight, probably wouldn't dare to even march with their men lest their uniforms become soiled, and generally made the lives of the fighting men difficult. This specimen's sizable midsection was no coincidence, Caudell, suspected. Times weren't as lean as they were during the war, but the Confederate economy was still struggling, and someone with enough money to eat that well most likely obtained his commission through similar means. After the war had ended, too many of these types, having carved out their own comfortable niches in the military, were loath to trade it for the uncertainty of civilian life.

The major wiped his visibly clammy hands on his tunic, and reached for the folded scrap of paper with its unmistakable telegrapher's markings. His hands shook slightly and he fumbled unfolding it, but if anything, as he read, the shaking grew worse, and the blood rushed from his face with such speed that it could almost be heard.

_Henry Pleasants is hereby recalled to duty at his prior rank of Colonel in the Army of the Confederate States of __America__ by order of President Lee. Colonel, you are to investigate these rumors of renewed contact with the Rivington men, and are fully authorized to recall to duty local ex-soldiers as you might deem necessary. Further, the resources of the Confederate military shall be at your disposal as you request them. You are to take any and all actions necessary to preserve the security of our nation, and report your findings at the earliest opportunity._

_Nathan B. Forrest_

_General, CSA_

Looking up finally from the brief note, the quaking major pushed the paper back across the desk, and tremulously asked, "Y-You are Henry Pleasants?"

"I am. And that's Colonel to you, _major." Pleasants paused long enough after that to let it sink in, and then said, "I trust I won't have to repeat my request?"_

Fat and happy the other officer might be, but he wasn't a fool. One look at the stern countenance of the non-uniformed colonel in front of him was enough to dispel any doubts he might have entertained about his willingness to inform Forrest about any obstructions. Yankee or not, the man had serious backing. The kind of backing no mere major should be interfering with. 

"No sir," the major said as quickly as he could get the words out, standing up so fast that his chair once again tipped over backwards. "Hawkins!" he shouted to one of the four poker players, who were now staring raptly at the small drama that had been unfolding. "Get the colonel what he wants. The rest of you get your uniforms on. Now, damn you!"

Both Caudell and Pleasants, now quite inured to further shock, didn't so much as twitch when Sheridan's Starfleet pin chirped for his attention. The major looked on the verge of a minor stroke, and the other men had stopped dead in their tracks to stare at the source of the noise. 

If the sound hadn't yet begun to grate on Sheridan, it was only because he didn't hear it as often as he did his own handlink. "Sheridan, go," he snapped into it.

The voice that came back was unmistakable, as was the urgency in it. "Captain," Marcus said in what could only have been a hissed whisper, "I'm only about two hundred yards down the road from where you are. And there's something here… I think you'll really want to see for yourself."


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15:

"Dammit," Sheridan muttered, glowering at his now-silent Starfleet pin. Glancing at Garibaldi, he shook his head and heaved a long-suffering sigh. "I would love it if just once he'd tell us something useful."

"Fat chance," Garibaldi grunted, smirking.

Henry Pleasants stared at them both for a long moment, then turned his attention back to the other occupants of the small building, and met their own wide-eyed stares with the same basilisk gaze that had melted the major. "Get a move on!"

Shaking themselves out of their immobility, the four men raced around the room, collecting pieces of their uniforms, scrambling for rucksacks and recently issued leather pouches, specially designed to hold AK-47 magazines and replace the heavy old cartridge box that served during the war. The major meanwhile had dived into the cabin's only other room, and was fumbling through his finely-sanded trunk for his own weapon.

Turning unmistakably towards Caudell, Pleasants commanded with deliberate volume, "First Sergeant, see to the weapons locker, we'll need at least six rifles."

Nate Caudell, dredging up the behavior drilled into him years earlier, snapped to a posture that could be forgivingly called "attention," and stomped over to the heavy oak gun cabinet in the corner. Little to his surprise, it wasn't locked or secured, and he pried the doors open, whistling at what he saw within. Propped up in a pair of neat rows within the cabinet, twelve repeaters were resting atop a large ammunition chest, oiled barrels gleaming in the orange glow of the wide hearth.

Pulling one out for inspection, Caudell worked the action, reacquainting himself with the once-familiar feel of the smooth wood stock and grip, its strangely light weight, and the cold metallic click of the action as he worked it. The workmanship was unmistakable. The Rivington men had brought a hundred thousand of the weapons back with them, but after the war, the army had been mostly reequipped with the Confederate model, which was being produced as quickly as the growing manufacturing capacity of the Confederacy could manage, while the much superior originals had been deemed too valuable to be left in service. Except here, apparently. "Hen… ah, Colonel," he said, "these are the real things."

                "Good, I expect we'll be needing them." Pleasants turned to the four poker players, who had managed to pull themselves into some semblance of uniformity. "I hope you boys have been practicing with these. From the looks of those guns, I doubt it. Prove me wrong."

                Caudell thrust the weapon he was holding into the hands of the nearest man, then ushered him towards the door, where Sheridan, Garibaldi, and Bashir were crowding back through to the outside. Moving faster, Caudell tossed the next gun at the next man, the one called Hawkins, who now wore a sergeant's stripes on his sleeve, and then the corporal behind him, and the private beyond.

                Pleasants helped himself to one of the rifles, then scooped out the ammunition chest and began tossing loaded clips to the men, and stuffing several more into his pockets wherever they fit. The last he snapped into the receiver of the AK-47 in his hands just as the heavyset major bustled out of the back room, attempting to hook the holster of his Colt Navy revolver to his wide belt.

                "Major," Pleasants said bluntly, "you will remain here."

                The round-faced major's protest died sputtering on his lips as Pleasants turned to regard him evenly, jacking a round into the chamber of his rifle with a startlingly loud click. "That's an order, Major. If this post is under enemy observation, they'll know something's afoot if the lights go out and the fire burns out."

                He was being denied a place in whatever action was about to take place, but the thought of sitting by a warm fire in a safe, comfortable cabin and still being involved in some small way balanced out in the major's mind, and he nodded thoughtfully. "A deception. Stonewall would approve, sir."

                Pleasants smiled thinly. "I hope so." Closing the door behind himself as he left, he shook his head wonderingly, and stepped into the circle of people forming on the path. His eyes were just starting to be re-accustomed to the dark, so he nearly jumped when from over his shoulder, Garibaldi asked, "Did he really buy that? You know, and I know, that if whoever's out there is watching this place, we're sunk already."

                "Doesn't matter much to me," Pleasants replied. "What does matter is that he's not stumbling along behind us with a loaded weapon."

                Garibaldi winced at the thought. "Point taken." Then he grinned, and added, "I take it that he's what they used to call a REMF."

                "Mr. Garibaldi!" Sheridan's mock reprimand only made the security chief's grin widen.

                Caudell squinted at Garibaldi through the darkness. "A what?"

                Bashir looked confused, which gave him something in common with the rest of the 1871 natives.

                Garibaldi explained.

                "By God if that ain't the truth," Pleasants forced out between laughs. Sheridan could only roll his eyes, and try to stifle a smirk. Caudell and the four soldiers joined the laughter, even if it was a bit nervous on the soldiers' part. Bashir still looked slightly confused, and Garibaldi gave up on him.

                "It's your mission now, it seems, Colonel," Sheridan offered with a shrug, glancing around at the suddenly mismatched numbers. "If Marcus was whispering though, I'd recommend stealth."

                "Certainly," Pleasants agreed easily enough. "Nate, you're the senior sergeant here, so I want you to take these boys on ahead. You do remember how to run a skirmish line, don't you?"

                "A skirmish line of five men? I think I can manage… sir," Caudell retorted dryly. Now he jacked a round into his own gun, turned to the four soldiers, and said, "Sergeant Hawkins, you heard the colonel. We'll be takin' the lead, but ya'll keep it quiet, understand? Just like a deer hunt. And keep an eye on the ground; they dropped a buncha damn torpedoes around the town a few years back."

                It was obvious by now to the younger man that something serious was going on, and the hand clutching his rifle shook slightly as he answered, "Yes sir, just like a deer hunt. Me an' the boys can do that."

                Caudell nodded in return, raised a hand, and stealing off into the woods, waved them to follow.

                The speed at which the five men vanished into trees amazed Sheridan, who turned to regard Pleasants with raised brows.

                The colonel laughed. "It is something, ain't it? I can't do it myself, but you should've seen the fellers in my old regiment. Some of them were from the back woods of Pennsylvania, and they could shoot like the devil and move like Injuns." Looking into the woods, his eyes unfocused in memory, he added, "They were a lot like these boys here. If things had gone a little differently, most of 'em could have been friends. God damned shame." Then he shook his head reflexively, taking stock of who was left of their little group in the light still pouring from the windows of the small cabin.

                "We've given them enough of a head start, I think," he said. "Everyone just remember to keep quiet, and keep low." With that admonition, he set off a short distance down the trail back to the wider road, then cut into the woods, following the road from the shelter of the tall brush lining it.

                Wordlessly, Sheridan stayed on his heels, motioning for Garibaldi and Bashir to follow a short distance behind, and to keep alert. Garibaldi didn't need to be told even once and already crept along with PPG in hand, eyeing the forest around them watchfully.

                Feeling their way forward, and unable to make use of Garibaldi's flashlight, their movements were slow and careful. Even so, the lighted windows of the cabin were quickly lost in the trees behind them, and the road became little more than a pale slash in the woods on their right.

Thunder rumbled ominously overhead, and a sudden gust of wind whipped branches and leaves into their faces. Bashir stopped to wipe away a large raindrop that plopped into his face from above, and Garibaldi prodded him forward again. "Keep moving," he murmured, "little rain never hurt anybody."

"Speak for yourself," Bashir returned in a low, sardonic tone. "You aren't wearing a wool shirt. Do you have any idea how much I'm going to itch?"

Garibaldi was prevented from responding that he not only didn't know, but didn't care, when Sheridan hissed at them to be quiet. 

A taut whisper to their left brought them to a halt finally, and Sheridan was relieved to spot the glint of light off a familiar Ranger brooch, incongruous against the clothes it was pinned to. Raindrops spattered occasionally off the leaves around them, and Marcus's smile flashed white in the gloom. "Glad to see you made it, Captain. This is quite a batch you've picked up. Some of these chaps wouldn't make half-bad Rangers, you know."

"Don't get any ideas," Sheridan warned. "Now, what are we looking for here?"

"Just up ahead a few steps. The ground drops off up ahead and the road follows it down into a clearing. I think there used to be houses or something there, but they're gone now. If we get away from the road though, the hill runs right up to the edge of the open ground, and that's where I was looking down on them from. And that's when I saw it."

Pleasants gestured sharply. "Take us up there, man!"

The vantage point Marcus spoke of was just a short distance uphill from where they crouched, and crawling over the top of the low rise, they were startled by the sudden glare of a blue-white light through the trees. 

Blinking to clear his eyes, Garibaldi peered down into the illuminated clearing below. Almost immediately, he saw the object to which Marcus must have been referring. Squatting in the center of the open space in the glow of halogen lights from a distant year, a railroad hand-cart was being guarded by a pair of stony-face sentries. Armed with AK-47's themselves, the camouflaged sentries periodically paced around the cart, warily glancing into the encroaching forest. A few dozen yards behind it, several small tents, and a larger camouflaged one were pitched beside what appeared to be yet more burned-out ruins; a house from the size, and a generator chugged along a short distance from the largest tent.

The rain began to fall in earnest now, visible in the glare of the spotlights posted around the perimeter, and soaking the watchers concealed in the trees. There was a single outwardly unremarkable-looking crate sitting atop the hand-cart, lashed into place with nylon straps, and the cart itself was flanked by piles of new-looking steel railroad trestles and smaller crates. One side of the crate atop the cart was still opened, however, and the snub-nosed metal object within draw Garibaldi's eye to it immediately. Through what was rapidly becoming a steady and uncomfortable downpour, the singular black and yellow insignia emblazoned on the side was unmistakable. "My God, they're not going for the subtle approach, are they?" he muttered aloud. "You seeing this, Captain?"

Beside him, Sheridan nodded grimly. "I see it. We've got a problem."

"It's bloody overkill, if you ask me," Marcus commented.

"I didn't," Garibaldi said archly.

"Well who asked you?" Marcus quipped.

"Quiet!" Sheridan and Pleasants commanded in unison.

"So just what the hell is that thing?" Pleasants asked impatiently.

Sheridan grimaced. "A weapon."

Exasperated, Pleasants glared at him reproachfully, and said, "I can see that, Captain. I want to know what kind of weapon it is. It sounds to me like you know." The whirring hum of Bashir's tricorder underscored his words.

Sheridan hesitated, wondering how much to tell, but resolved the issue quickly. _Might as well tell him. Anyway, it'll be another seventy or eighty years before they have the technology to even start making a guess about how it works. "It's some kind of a nuclear weapon: a bomb, actually. A very big bomb."_

Eyebrows knitted, Pleasants stared at him. "Why would they bring something like that? It's not big enough to hold more than a few tons of powder, and we used more than that to blow their lines open just a few miles from here. You can't fight a whole country with that!"

"Hey, don't you get it?" Garibaldi snapped, appalled by the other man's apparent unconcern. "They didn't just cram some powder in there and hope it cooks off. When that thing goes off, you'd be looking at the same thing as a few _million _tons of TNT!"

"Mr. Garibaldi," Sheridan reminded him sharply, "I don't think they've even invented TNT yet." He shook his head, turning back to Pleasants. "Colonel, what Mr. Garibaldi means is that this is no ordinary bomb. If they set this thing off in a city, there won't _be a city anymore."_

Pleasants stared at them all dubiously before answering carefully. "As a matter of fact, Captain, we do have TNT. You'll have to excuse me if this is a difficult pill to swallow. Captain, I'm an engineer, and everything I know about explosives says you're both lunatics." He licked suddenly dry lips, continuing, "But so far tonight I've seen a ray of light that can make people disappear and come back, wireless telegraphs smaller than a snuff box, and guns that shoot honest-to-God fireballs… so you'll forgive me if I'm disinclined to say what is or isn't possible.

"But that'll be my next question," he told them. "Say they've got this super-bomb of yours. What are they planning on doing with it, and how can we stop 'em?"

Sheridan could only shake his head and scowl through the rain at the rickety rail-cart and its deadly cargo. "I can't answer the first," he admitted. "From what you've told us, they don't stand to gain anything simply by blowing up Richmond. They may be furious with you, but they did steal another time machine and a nuke, so they aren't stupid. There's something more going on here. As to the second question though, I think we can help you there." Almost grinning with anticipation, he yanked the Starfleet chevron pin from his vest pocket, and pressed it. "Sheridan to Enterprise. We need you to beam something up for us."

He waited, his grin starting to slip away, as the pin remained silent. "Sheridan to Enterprise," he repeated, "Please respond."

"Captain," Bashir put in, "I think our problems are more complicated than that." He waved his tricorder, sending water droplets beaded on the case flying in all directions. "I've been trying to scan this thing for the past few minutes." He shrugged helplessly. "As far as my tricorder is concerned, there's nothing there."

"An illusion?" Sheridan asked.

Bashir shook his head vigorously. "Definitely not. Even if it were a hologram, I'd be picking up radiation signatures, ambient light, biosigns from the guards, power sources… but I'm not even reading _air anymore. All the tricorder can see anymore is some kind of energy field. I'll try and narrow down what we're looking at, but I can't tell you how long that'll take. If I can get close to the bomb, the tricorder might be able to cut through the interference," he offered dubiously._

"Man," Garibaldi muttered testily, "do you people build these things specially designed to be as temperamental as Ivanova on a bad hair day? I'd better not find out there's some kind of fragging rock that's making that thing act all haywire."

"That hardly ever happens," Bashir sniffed defensively.

"We're being jammed," Sheridan grunted, hoping he was wrong. "That's why I can't get ahold of your ship."

Bashir nodded reluctantly. "That does seem to fit the facts. But how?" He glanced sideways at Pleasants, soil that was rapidly turning to mud squishing beneath him as he moved. "I thought you said they came from the early 21st century? They shouldn't be able to do that!"

"Maybe they came from further in the future than we thought?" Garibaldi hazarded.

"It doesn't matter right now," Sheridan said, ending the conversation. "We'll just have to take it into account until we can figure this out. We can't afford to send anyone back to reestablish contact with the ships, and we can't count on our handlinks either. We have no idea how far this jamming field goes, and now we have no way of knowing just how many more people they have in those tents, so we need every extra hand here. Including yours, Doctor."

"We'll have to do things ourselves," Pleasants said, clearly following the exchange to at least some degree. "Just the way we always have." The last was a pointed reminder to the men from the future. "We'll need to remove those guards if we intend to gain a closer look at that bomb, but we can't do that with those damned lights." He glanced around, quickly spotting the two other people he needed to speak to, and as luck would have it, within earshot of a low call even over the sound of the rain. "Nate! Get over here, and bring Sergeant Hawkins with you."

It didn't take long before Caudell slithered up alongside the others through the muck, with the sergeant at his back. He didn't much care for crawling through the mud, but clothes and bodies could be washed: it was a different story if a careless head wound up in a Rivington man's gun sights. "Right here, Henry. Uh, Colonel Henry."

Pleasants shook his head, more amused than anything else. He turned his attention to the other man first, however. "Sergeant, what's the layout of this place, and why the hell wasn't it reported?"

Wide-eyed, Hawkins seemed speechless for a moment, but he gathered his wits quickly and responded, "Sir, the major, he sends out a patrol through here every day. I came through here myself just yesterday morn', and there weren't nothing here! I swear, Colonel!"

"That explains why there aren't any of those double-damned endless repeaters set up yet," Caudell said thoughtfully. "To tell the truth, I was half-expecting to get myself chewed apart by one of 'em on the way here."

"I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't crossed my mind either," Pleasants confessed quietly.

"That sounds like one of those things you should have mentioned before we came this far," Garibaldi grumbled.

Sheridan continued scanning the encampment, keeping an amused eye on Bashir, who was smacking his tricorder into the palm of his hand, as if a display of stress could jar it into activity. They were in a position of strength despite their small numbers and uncertain technology, he recognized at once – it had been so long since he hadn't been the underdog that he'd forgotten what it felt like to have the advantage. Now that he did have it though, he intended to make full use of it.

"Colonel, you were right. The first thing we need to do is knock out those lights. Those guards down there don't have night vision of any kind, so darkness is our friend right now. And that means we have to take out that generator. With a bit of luck, it'll also knock out their jamming device."

"A phaser hit should more than suffice, Captain," Bashir offered, finally pocketing the useless scanning device.

Garibaldi shook his head furiously. "No way. We don't even know how many of them are in those tents, and the racket your phasers make would have every last one of them crawling up our butts in a second."

"Garibaldi's right," Sheridan said, "we need to shut that thing down, but it has to be quietly. If they think it's just a break down, it'll buy us some time to check out that bomb." He was laying out a plan of action in his head, but Pleasants wasn't content to wait. He also knew he was out of his league when it came to a single bomb that could supposedly level an entire city.

"I can manage that, I reckon," the Pennsylvanian engineer said. "Sergeant Hawkins, collect your men, you're with First Sergeant Caudell here. Mr. Garibaldi, I'd be appreciative if you'd join them as well. Nate, that thing's all yours."

"You don't know how that generator works," Sheridan pointed out.

Caudell grinned. "Seeing as how I'm just supposed to break it, that doesn't strike me as such an obstacle."

Sheridan returned the expression, nodding slowly. "All right. The minute those lights go out, we're making our move. If we can do it without being spotted, all the better. Good luck, Colonel."

But the Confederate soldiers were already gone with Garibaldi in tow, leaving only a faint rustle of leaves and undergrowth to mark their departure.

Less than five minutes later, the gentle chugging of the generator stopped cold, and the entire clearing was plunged into pitch darkness. Sheridan had no idea how Garibaldi and the men with him had silenced the machine so quietly, but Marcus's movements were suddenly audible below him on the hill. 

A rustle of leaves. A faint footstep and snapping twig. Then nothing for several heartbeats.

Someone down in the clearing said something, a note of concern clear even in the Germanic-sounding tongue it spoke. The voice almost muffled a short rush of air and compressed metal that had become a familiar sound in recent months, and though the men arranged on the hill above could never guess at how the Ranger had retained his night vision, the results were swift and certain. The sounds of two bodies striking the dirt reached their ears as if through cotton.

"That's our cue." Sheridan directed the comment at Henry Pleasants, who licked his lips, and nodded. Sounds in the darkness ahead hinted at men boiling out of the tents in response to the sudden power outage.

Raising his right hand, Pleasants brought it down in swift chopping motion pointed in the general direction of the rail cart below them. "Skirmish order, men, hold your fire until I give the word. Move out!"

The men scattered, making the short rush down the hill as fast as any of them could manage without light. Aside from several stifled exclamations and curses as some of them collided with trees, roots, or thorny brambles, or slipped down the increasingly muddy slope, the charge into the clearing was nearly silent.

The ruckus on the other side of the clearing, amid the encampment there was growing, and flashlight beams stabbed the night, searching for targets as other men ran to the generator to restart it. The scene was all the more eerie due to the muffling rain, the odd shadows produced by waving flashlights, and the oddly-accented shouts of men.

Marcus was waiting beside the rail card and its deadly cargo when Pleasants stormed into the clearing in the lead of the small group emerging from the woods at the foot of the hill. Two limp bodies at his feet said all that needed to be said of how well he had performed his task.

Sheridan pointed at the bomb on the cart, and waved Bashir over to it. "Doctor, get up there and find out what it is, and if we can shut it down! Everyone else, find some good cover here. We don't have much time."

While Bashir smoothly hauled himself to the top of the cart, and went to fiddling with his tricorder, Sheridan stabbed a well-used button on his handlink, figuring it was worth a try before he sent someone to go looking for them. "Garibaldi, get back over here, we're expecting company any time now."

"Copy that, Captain," Garibaldi replied. "Something tells me they were expecting this. But that generator's out for good. Garibaldi out." Sheridan breathed a silent prayer of thanks that their handlinks didn't seem affected by the jamming.

Pleasants rested his rifle across a rain-slicked pile of steel rail trestles, and crouched behind it, keeping a careful watch on the camp in front of them. At his feet, a walkie-talkie suddenly crackled to life, and he nearly leapt the pile.

A tinny, thickly accented voice bawled, "Josef, come in Josef! We may have been discovered. Report in immediately!"

"Ah hell." Sheridan, who had taken a position behind the same rail pile, turned his gaze up at the rail cart. "Doctor, you don't think you can hurry that along, can you?" The ragged voice on the other end of the walkie-talkie began blasting imprecations at the unconscious guard, and Sheridan yanked the small box from the man's belt and ground it under his heel with an aggravated growl.

"That jamming field's still up, Captain," Bashir's tense, preoccupied voice said, floating down from above. "If you think you can do better, be my guest!"

Figures running towards them from the general direction of the camp dissuaded Sheridan's response, as did the chip of his handlink. Silhouetted by the flickering and probing lights behind them and obscuring rain, a clear identification was impossible. 

"Captain, hold your fire, that's us!" Garibaldi exclaimed, panting into his own link. "I think we've been made!"

After spending the past hours creeping through a forest, only the background drone of insects to break the silence, the shouting of the Rivington men in their camp had seemed loud. But that was as next to nothing when the first shot was fired. Garibaldi and the men with him threw themselves down and scuttled into the dubious shelter of the railroad cart, steel rails, and tool crates, breathing heavily. The first flat crack of a rifle was followed by several more, and there was no doubt about who they were aimed at.

"Hurry up, Doc!" Garibaldi shouted, no longer bothering to keep his voice down.

"What do I look like I'm doing?!" Bashir yelled back, ducking down and using the bomb itself as a shield. He'd seen enough combat against the Dominion, the Cardassians, and more others than he cared to remember, so he knew the value of cover. That didn't mean he had to like it, though.

Pleasants meanwhile made a quick head-count and breathed a sigh of relief. "Alright boys, give 'em hell! And aim carefully, dammit!" He hoped that Sheridan knew what he was doing, because the whole situation was rapidly going to hell. He'd seen the accuracy of these weapons first hand, and even in the darkness he doubted that they could retreat up the hill behind them without at least half of them being picked off.

One of the Rivington men flopped to the ground shrieking, and another simply dropped where he stood before the rest managed to find cover. Their initial panicked reactions had ended, and now they were coolly returning fire.

Sheridan held his fire for the moment, keeping his head out of the line of fire. It was amazing, he thought. _Here I am armed with a weapon so advanced that even the engineer thinks it shoots fireballs, and I feel practically naked._ By any measure, this was nothing like any firefight he'd ever been in, if simply because it was happening somewhere other than a back corridor of Babylon 5.

Bashir suddenly shouted triumphantly. "I've got something, Captain!" He was still shouting, but over the constant rattle and stuttering of gunfire and the thrumming rain, Sheridan still had to concentrate to make out the words.

Just then, one of the soldiers who'd joined Bashir atop the rail cart toppled backwards to the ground, heaving the foamy wet breaths of a lung-shot. Nate Caudell swore violently, and pointed at the position held by the Rivington men. "Shoot for the lights!" After one of the Rivington men stopped a bullet directed towards his flashlight, the others caught on quickly, and most turned theirs off, leaving only the bold flickers of muzzle flashes to pick targets by.

Bashir leaped from the cart to the wounded man, and cursing, Sheridan left the cover of the trestles long enough to scurry to a spot behind the cart.

"We need to get this man back to the ship!" Bashir yelled when he turned and saw the Earthforce captain behind him.

"And we can't do that until we take out whatever's jamming us!" Sheridan returned hotly. "Now what hell did you find?"

Chagrined, Bashir gestured to his tricorder. "I think I found the source of the field." He motioned Sheridan to the end of the cart, and leaned around one of the big wheels, pointing through the downpour. "See that small tent off to the side there? I'm pretty sure whatever it is, is in there."

Looking for himself, Sheridan stared unhappily where Bashir had indicated. The tent, more of a Quonset hut, was located to one side of the camp… and directly behind of a line of sand bags that concealed who knew how many well armed Rivington men.

Sending several rounds downrange, Pleasants threw himself down behind the steel again, and shouted, "I hope like hell you've got a plan, Sheridan!"

Garibaldi, alerted by the shout, scurried across to the rail cart with Marcus following closely behind, occasionally hugging the ground as bullets hissed overhead. Coming up behind Sheridan, he called, "Captain, we can't stay here! They've got more men, more ammo, and at this range, once it gets light we won't be able to pull out."

Sheridan pulled the security chief over, and pointed out their target in the scattered light of the remaining flashlights. "If we can take that hut out, we can just ask to be beamed out. Problem is, just shooting it up probably won't work, and I wouldn't care to try hitting it with a PPG at this distance."

Nodding in agreement, Garibaldi pulled back behind the cover of the cart's nearest wheel. "Maybe if we had a PPG rifle, Captain. But if we start shooting off our pistols here, we're just asking to eat lead, and we still would be lucky to hit it, and even then it'd take more than one hit to guarantee taking it out." He started to give a defeated shake of the head, when his eyes suddenly snapped to Bashir, who was once more crouched over the wounded man.

"But one of your phaser guns on the other hand…" Garibaldi said speculatively. The small, overly-ergonomic shape on the doctor's waist was a far cry from the big rifle Worf had tutored him in on the holodeck, but it was basically the same kind of weapon. "Hey Doc, how many shots can you make with that gun of yours at full power?"

Looking startled by the question, Bashir rocked back on his heels, drawing the phaser. "Why? You planning on knocking down a building?" Garibaldi's sudden grin answered him, and he blinked. "You're not serious. No, wait; forget I asked that, of course you would be."

Sheridan motioned him over. "We need that jamming field taken out, now, Doctor. Can you hit it at this range?"

Bashir managed to look insulted, but braced the phaser against his forearm, leaned up against the cold steel of the cart wheel, and depressed the trigger.

And pressed it again when nothing happened.


	17. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

"Any time now, Doc," Garibaldi shouted impatiently.

Sheridan's face went grim as he watched Bashir jab the trigger several more times in quick succession, with the same lack of result. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know!" Bashir returned, scowling at the uncooperative weapon. "That field must be jamming the phaser controls too!"

"Well that's just great!" Garibaldi bellowed back at him.

"If we don't take out the jammer, we won't even be able to get out of here," Sheridan announced firmly. "Now I, for one, don't accept that. We need options, people."

"We've got to blow up that hut," Garibaldi said in a defeated tone, turning to peek around the cart and look for likely targets.

Marcus clambered to one knee, staring at them through the falling rain. "Oh, is that all?" he snapped sarcastically.

Bashir bit his lip unwillingly, staring at his phaser. "There's one thing we could try," he suggested hesitantly. The look Sheridan shot him all but said, _Well__ go ahead and tell us, dammit!_

The doctor fumbled with his phaser with mud-slicked fingers before finding the small catch that popped the tiny control pad into his hand, and exposed some of the inner workings. He'd never taken the Academy tactical combat courses that included anything more advanced than basic phaser maintenance, but he hadn't been best friends with one of the best engineers in Starfleet for seven years without picking up a few things here and there. While he worked, he tried to explain over the continuing sound of gunfire and rain. "I'm trying to bypass the main controls so I can rig this thing to overload. Normally you can do that without jury-rigging it, but something's affecting the control circuits, so I'm going to have to do it manually." He searched his memory for the details of what he was trying to do, and absently continued, "If we can get close enough…"

"Instant grenade," Garibaldi completed, suddenly looking interested. "Captain, that just might do it. It's a long shot, but what the hell else do we have?"

Sheridan didn't appear entirely happy with the solution, but finally nodded. "All right. Marcus, if we give you a diversion, can you get close enough?"

Marcus glanced around the cart wheel and studied the distance to their target, and the distance to the nearest edge of the clearing. "I suppose I don't have a choice, do I?"

"No."

The Ranger had expected no less. Had even come to expect it. It annoyed him all the same. He gave Bashir an appraising glance, and a mental shrug. If the doctor couldn't keep quiet and stealthy, they were both dead. If he could manage it, they still might end up dead. He ended up simply pointing in the direction of the nearest edge of the clearing from where they could make their approach, and said, "Just give the word."

"Consider it given."

Marcus ducked out of the way, towing Bashir in his wake. Henry Pleasants, quickly picking up on the rudiments of the plan, barked, "All right boys, give 'em the full measure! Go to automatic!" Further down the line, Nate Caudell repeated the order at a parade-ground bellow.

The smooth, staggered firing of the Confederate soldiers suddenly gave way to a roaring, ripping eruption of rifle fire that belched outward from their patchwork defenses, tearing into the trees and tents on the far side of the clearing. It was doubtful if any of those barely-controlled rounds struck a Rivington men, but while it was going on, few of them had the daring to expose themselves long enough to return fire. Sheridan joined in with some wild bursts from his PPG, and Garibaldi quickly followed his lead, scooting from cover to cover and sending flaming plasma discharges downrange. They'd all soon be out of ammunition at this rate – the Confederates were going through entire magazines in seconds, and Sheridan was down to his last PPG cap.

Marcus and Bashir were making good use of that time, rushing across the short, deadly open space before they reached the dubious shelter of the brush and trees nearby. Once under that cover, they rushed through the brush on all fours, Bashir sputtering and coughing as soaked branches and leaves smacked him in the face in the Ranger's wake. Despite their attempt at speed and stealth, though, they still attracted some random gunfire, and soon buzzing bullets were dropping twigs and leaves on their heads, forcing them lower to the ground. It wasn't long before Marcus called a halt, still a solid eighty yards from the big Quonset hut.

"Doctor, tell me you can hit that thing from here," Marcus said wryly. "Because we're not getting any closer, unless you're bullet-proof."

Bashir exhaled noisily. If he had been able to stand, it would have been well within his capabilities to hurl his phaser right on to the hut's sloping roof. But that was clearly out of the question, which left him trying to hurl a phaser across most of the length of a football field while lying on his face in the middle of a thick, damp mess of ferns. In all honesty, he wouldn't have bet on his making a throw like this in a baseball game on a holosuite, let alone while being shot at.

"Okay Julian, you can do this," he whispered to himself. Then he turned sideways, pulling himself into a position from which he could whip his right arm across his body, using it not unlike a catapult to fling the phaser as far as he could manage. His fingers tapped out the final adjustments and commands into the phaser's "dumb" computer, and it suddenly let out a high pitched whine. The whine increased into a howl, and Bashir muttered, "Here goes nothing." He drew back, and flung the now-keening phaser so hard that he felt a muscle in his shoulder tear in the awkward position he was in.

The irregular shape of the phaser spun through the night air, spinning end over end. Bashir's genetically enhanced hand-eye coordination was very good, and his accuracy excellent.

Even that had its limits, however, and the phaser dropped down at almost precisely the right range… forty feet to the left of the Quonset hut. It went off in a thunderous explosion, rocking the ground, and sending a blazing orange fireball rising into the sky. Gunfire slackened off from both sides, and several Rivington men fled from the scene of destruction, one of them shrieking, his clothes on fire. The Quonset hut remained, apparently untouched.

"Well doctor, I do hope you have another brilliant plan," Marcus quipped sourly.

As soon as the roar of the blast died away, Garibaldi poked his head out of cover long enough to survey the scene. Sheridan remained crouched behind his chosen cover, frantically trying to reload his PPG, and the first thing he heard clearly as the thunder ended was Garibaldi's less-than-promising reaction. "God damn it! I don't fragging believe this!"

"I'd sure love to know how you made a bomb like that," Henry Pleasants observed, "but your aim leaves something to be desired, it must be said."

Sheridan's PPG whined as his last cap snapped into place, and he leaned around the rail car to confirm the worst. It _was _an impressive blast for an overloaded weapon, he had to admit. But despite the casualties it had inflicted on the Rivington men, their own situation had suddenly gone from bad to worse. Their one ace in the hole was gone, whatever was jamming their communications with the ships in orbit was still active, and they'd just expended most of their remaining ammunition paving the way for that phaser-bomb.

"Captain, we're gonna need another plan real soon, or the only thing they'll be beaming up from this place are corpses," Garibaldi warned. He launched another salvo of plasma bolts as he spoke, dropping the expended cap and slapping in a new one without even glancing down at his weapon.

Mind racing for a new plan, Sheridan studied the immediate area, searching in vain for something he might have missed earlier – some trick of the terrain, or simply something that would serve as a weapon once their ammunition was gone. He was still coming up blank when the Quonset hut in the middle of the Rivington men's encampment exploded.

"Explosion" was a word that didn't do the event justice. It went up as if from a small nuke, an enormous blue and white flash that left everyone facing that direction seeing spots as the light faded into an angry red and the concussion threw them backwards. Garibaldi appeared to be saying something, but all sound was quashed by a subsonic rumble that rocked the ground, and rent the air. Trees and brush in the camp joined several of the tents in suddenly bursting into flame, heated to the point of ignition by proximity. That first, outward blast of air was suddenly reversed, as the raging fireball drew in the surrounding oxygen to feed itself, and Caudell screamed a soundless imprecation as his hat flew off his head, and towards the inferno. Even at the distance they were at, the rain soaked into their clothes began to steam.

The conflagration was as short-lived as it was intense, fortunately, and the now faintly glowing cloud of smoke and debris drifted heavenward, the receding noise finally allowing other sounds through. Henry Pleasants was crouched no more than five feet from Sheridan, but his shouted voice sounded distant and small all the same. "My compliments to your doctor, Captain! It appears I spoke too soon!"

Sheridan only shook his head, dumbfounded. He'd seen the phaser explode, and there was no way it could have been responsible; not unless that Quonset hut had been holding a few tons of rocket fuel. But the colonel's comment made him wonder about how Marcus and the doctor had come through that blast, as close as they were to it.

Garibaldi seconded his opinion. "No way, Colonel! Whatever that was, we didn't do it!"

Catching his breath, Sheridan realized suddenly that there was one sure-fire way to test the doctor's theory during the respite the massive explosion had granted them. He was fumbling through his unfamiliar clothes for the Starfleet issue communicator when it saved him the trouble by chirping to life of its own accord. If anyone was speaking through it, he was in no condition to hear it. Finally locating it, he brought it to his mouth, and squeezed it between his thumb and forefinger, answering with his automatic, "Sheridan, go."

"Captain Sheridan, this is Commander Riker. The jamming field is down, but hold your fire."

_Hold our fire?_ Sheridan echoed mentally. Then he shrugged, and turned to give the order, but Pleasants had overheard.

"Hold your fire, boys!" he roared, then moved down the line to repeat himself, to make sure everyone heard. Caudell picked up on the order and added his own finely-developed sergeant's bellow to the command.

Garibaldi perked up suddenly. "Hey, Captain, you hear that?" Several of the men were glancing up in consternation now, as a strange, staggered series of high-pitched shrieks rolled through the woods from _behind_ what was left of the Rivington camp. "Energy weapons!" He laughed suddenly, and slowly came out from behind his pockmarked shelter. No incoming fire forced him back.

Moments later, figures began to emerge from the trees flanking the smoldering gap left by the blast. Garibaldi kept his PPG firmly in hand, though at a more relaxed stance, and he waved down Caudell and two of the Confederate soldiers who were still warily covering these potential threats with their weapons. These figures, however, were wearing the distinctive black and grey jumpsuits favored by Starfleet, and accompanied by another wearing the similarly colored uniform distinctive to Babylon 5's command staff. Those particular color choices only made them harder to see, lit as they were mainly by the fires still burning around the blast zone.

Sheridan emerged from cover, soaked, exhausted, and grimy, peering through a gentler rain and a mix of smoke and drifting fog, his attention almost entirely focused on his first officer. He didn't wait for their approach, starting off across the newly secured clearing, followed by Garibaldi and more slowly, the Confederates. The two groups met nearly in the middle.

Commander Riker stepped forward, sheltering his face from the rain with one hand. "Captain, good to see you." Seeing the confused looks he was getting, he explained, "When we figured out there was some kind of jamming field at work down here, Captain Picard sent us down to assist. If there's some technology at work that can block out sensors, communicators, and transporters, then cultural contamination is most likely a moot point." He finished that sentence with his eyes on the Confederate soldiers.

"Believe me, we appreciate the assistance," Sheridan conceded wryly. Then his gaze turned back to his first officer. "But that doesn't explain what you think you're doing down here, Susan. I gave you a direct order," he said severely.

"In point of fact, you didn't," Ivanova pointed out directly. "Sir. You ordered me not to go down with your team."

"I…" Sheridan's heated response died in his throat. Ivanova was technically correct. "Dammit Susan, that's not the point."

"Captain, Commander, you two want to hash this out later?" Garibaldi interrupted. "Right now we've got a man down, a nearly roasted ranger and doctor over there - " he gestured to two shell-shocked figures making their way towards the gathering, "- and a live nuke sitting right behind us."

"Commander Riker, report," Riker's comm.-badge suddenly demanded.

Riker glanced around quickly, taking stock before answering. "We've got things under control here, sir. But we'll need a few people beamed to sickbay, and we've got prisoners." He moved off to one side, directing the security team he'd brought to mark and round up the fleeing Rivington men they'd stunned.

Worf, who'd joined the away team on his own insistence – the security team, Riker, and Ivanova having come directly from the Defiant – was cornered by Garibaldi, and forced to explain the workings of the tubular isomagnetic disintegrator he'd used to strike the Quonset hut, thereby removing the jamming field through the effective expedient of vaporizing it. The chief was somewhat disappointed to learn that the enormous explosion they'd witnessed had been largely the result of whatever was in the hut, and not of the weapon that set it off.

Pleasants ordered his own men to scout out the area, and round up any Rivington men they found, with orders to keep alert, and shoot if necessary. He was taking no chances with men who'd demonstrated in the past their capability to be lethal, however injured they were.

Marcus ambled up to Babylon 5's officers, while nonchalantly trying to maintain his dignity: singed, burned, soaked to the bone, and coated in mud, but still making the attempt. While Bashir limped off to help the security men locate all the wounded with his tricorder, Ivanova was left trying not to guffaw at Marcus' gently smoldering beard.

The transporter shimmered nearby, and twelve different conversations were suddenly interrupted by an elated shout. "Nate!"

First Sergeant Nate Caudell barely had time to look up before a small, ragged, gray-clad bundle plowed into him with enough force to knock him backwards to the ground. Not that that would have taken much, as weary as he was, but it still surprised him enough to take a moment before he realized what had just pounced on him. "Mollie?" Caudell hadn't really believed anything bad had happened to her, but the whole idea of breaking someone into tiny pieces and moving them somewhere else where they could be reassembled was so unnatural to his way of thinking that dark concerns had been niggling at his consciousness ever since she'd vanished in a column of sparkly light. And now here she was, clearly unhurt, and Caudell was so relieved that he didn't even consider his audience. "Mollie!"

When he finally disentangled himself from her embrace, he found himself looking up at a grinning Henry Pleasants – who he was quite sure, would never let him forget this – and the shocked expression of Sergeant Hawkins, who was gaping at his gruff first sergeant hugging and kissing a uniformed corporal.

Pleasants rubbed his forehead wearily. "I can tell this is going to require a very long explanation."

Sergeant Hawkins, shaking his head and muttering to himself, went off to help his men search the vicinity of the blast zone. The Starfleet security guards began rounding up the camouflaged men they'd stunned, hauling them into a clear spot not far from the rail car and its deadly payload until they received word on what Captain Picard intended to do about them. Only the most critically wounded of those were sent up to the ship, and that amounted to only two of them – the flack jackets they wore beneath their fatigues had saved most of them from more than bumps and bruises, if not phasers, and the rest of those who'd been either too close to either explosion, or stopped a bullet in the wrong place, were already dead.

Commander Data beamed down just long enough to secure and disarm the warhead before both of them were brought back to the ship via one of Enterprise's large cargo transporters. According to Riker, Data would return shortly to begin a thorough search the rubble for clues to whoever placed that unknown jamming device.

A sudden commotion amid the scorched remains of the Rivington men encampment caught their attention. The massive figure of Worf emerged from one, a struggling human clamped by the back of the neck in a vise-like grip. The Klingon was flanked on both sides by the two Confederates who'd found the prisoner, both of them watching Worf's every move with a mixture of fascination, terror, and pure curiosity.

"Commander, Captain Sheridan," the brawny Klingon announced deferentially, tossing his captive to the ground at their feet with a contemptuous motion. "Perhaps this one has information of value." He eyed the camouflaged captive speculatively. "Shall I interrogate him, sir?"

The prisoner, who'd been weakly fighting against the Klingon despite a collection of minor injuries, cringed, throwing up his hands to protect his head.

Riker looked down at the Rivington man, huddled on the ground, and shook his head, adding, with a deliberately ominous tone, "No, I don't think you'll need to disembowel _this_ one. At least, as long as he tells us what we want to know."

Garibaldi stifled a laugh, feeling his respect for the bearded Starfleet officer jump a few notches. True, Worf could scare most humans pretty thoroughly, especially one who'd presumably never seen an alien before… but the speed with which Riker made use of that fear impressed him. It was a technique he was well familiar with himself. Ivanova, he noticed, had to turn away to hide her malicious grin.

Worf added to the effect by drawing a wicked-looking dagger from a sheath concealed behind his back. He slowly ran the edge of the blade along his thumb in full view of the prisoner, then flicked a hidden switch on the hilt, and with a sharp metallic click, the _dak'tag_ sprouted two smaller blades that flanked the main one.

The captive abandoned any pretence of resistance. "All right, I'll talk! I'll talk!"

Sheridan knelt, removing his hat, and staring at the man lying in the mud in front of him with a piercing glare. "Let's start simple. Who are you?"

"Piet Schraeder," the prisoner muttered in a thick South African accent.

"Surely a Rivington man," Caudell pronounced. "You're with the AWB," he accused Schraeder directly.

Schraeder only glared at him.

Caudell grunted. "That's what they call their organization: America Will Break. They just don't seem to be much concerned with which one." With a (barely) calculated amount of force, Caudell's foot slammed into the prisoner's ribs. "Why're you back? Your kind hasn't got any business here any longer."

"A better question is where they came from," Pleasants noted, speaking slowly. "If I understand this insanity rightly, the future that produced his kind doesn't exist anymore."

All eyes turned to Schraeder, who flushed angrily.

Caudell kicked him again. "Speak up!"

Schraeder scowled, then finally shrugged with a horrible grin. "Why the hell not, eh? All right, it's simple enough, I guess. Rhoodie was a damned fool." He coughed, wiped his mouth, then glanced at the red sheen on his fingers incuriously, before turning his full attention back on Sheridan, Riker, and Worf, ignoring Caudell entirely. "He planned that whole thing himself, you know that? Ripped off a time machine from the Russians, came up with his brilliant plan, then spent every last bit of money we had on weapons for these bloody white-trash barbarians."

A seething Caudell made to kick him again, but Worf clamped a massive hand down on his shoulder, and he stopped, swallowing hard. He had the distinct impression that things would end badly if he tried to throw off the hand of the big black man with a turtle shell for a forehead and the very large dagger.

Schraeder ignored the small exchange, continuing his story. "Rhoodie got his throat cut by some damned kaffir, and it served him right. He thought the Confederates would do what he wanted, and he was wrong. But when we got back to our time, it was like none of it ever happened! History didn't change at all for us. I think the Americans knew that all along – so did the Russians I think. But they knew what we did, so the Americans hunted us like animals for years." He sagged, adding, "We managed to hide our time machine. Even got it working again. But we couldn't live there, they were always right behind us! So we planned our revenge, and came back here."

"Why're you telling us this?" Pleasants inquired, fingering the safety on his rifle.

"What do you think?" Schraeder shot back, glaring at Worf. "Besides," and now he grinned crookedly, "it's too late for you to stop it completely. This bomb was meant for Richmond – cut off the head, and the whole kaffir-loving body dies." He spat. "The other one will turn Washington into a ghost city. These superstitious barbarians have no way to explain the effects of a neutron bomb, so all they will know is that their entire government has just gone and died. The United States will be in chaos for decades. They may even blame the Confederates." He shrugged. "Either one serves our purposes."

"You have got to be kidding me," Garibaldi opined. "That sounds like a bad supervillain plot from a comic book!"

"It doesn't matter," Sheridan replied. "If he's telling the truth, there's another bomb out there somewhere."

Worf leaned down, and with a single hand, grasped Schraeder's collar, and hauled the man bodily into the air. "Where is this other device?" he asked calmly. _Calm_ was a relative term for Klingons, and to any human who'd never met one, it still carried an unmistakable aura of threat. Schraeder tried squirming out of his own fatigue jacket, but yelped when the point of Worf's _dak'tag_ cam to rest just below his breastbone. "I will not ask again."

"A carriage, that's all I know! It was supposed to arrive in Washington by tomorrow afternoon, at the same time as we got this one to Richmond on the train."

"It must be in Virginia," Pleasants said. "We've got to tell the President, so we can block the roads leading north. I just don't know how we're going to explain all of this," he added, glumly.

"Oh, we don't have to explain nuthin'," Mollie said. "Remember that book we gave Marse Robert, Nate? He already knows all about those Rivington men!"

"Book?" The question came from Pleasants, Sheridan, and Riker.

Caudell brightened. "That's right! Henry, 'bout a year after the war, Mollie got hold of a book from one of the Rivington men. It said it was published in 1999, and had these big color pictures, and talked all about the war, except it went differently. We didn't know just what to do with it, so we gave it to Marse Robert – before he was President, I mean."

"Are you saying that Robert E. Lee knows all about these time-travelers, and where they're from?" Sheridan said dubiously.

Mollie nodded vigorously. "Sure as I know ya'll ain't from around these parts." Then her shoulders fell, as she confessed, "Well, I think so, anyways. I didn't stay around to make sure he went and read it, but I think he must've if he found 'em out."

Henry Pleasants clucked his tongue decisively. "I have to report to General Forrest about this anyhow, so why not go right to the top?" Now he paused cautiously. "It'd take us another day at least to get to Richmond from here," he hazarded. "But we could do this a whole lot faster if you all could give us a hand."

"I don't think we have much of a choice," Riker said. "If that bomb gets to Washington, it'll kill everyone in the city, and could start another war. If the Enterprise hasn't detected that other bomb yet, it must be hidden by a jamming field as well. We'll need help finding it."

Garibaldi shook his head. "Hold up a minute. How do we know Chuckles over there is telling us the truth? We don't know if there really is another bomb."

                "All right, say for the moment that you're right, and there is no other bomb," Sheridan countered. "What does he have to gain by lying to us? It's not like we don't have enough people down here to go on a wild goose chase."

                "I don't know," Garibaldi admitted. "Yet." He glared at the captive, then turned and stalked off to help round up the other surviving Rivington men.

                Riker made a 'have-it-your-way' face at the retreating back of Babylon 5's security chief, then turned to his own people. "Worf, take charge down here, and  finish rounding up that one's other friends, then sweep the wreckage for any clues to the identity of whoever set up that jamming field."

                The Klingon nodded. "What shall I do with the prisoners?"

                "Sergeant Hawkins!" Nate Caudell beckoned the shaken Confederate soldier to his side. Hawkins looked ill, and kept shooting nervous glances at Worf. Caudell could hardly blame him – he felt light-headed from the whole experience himself, and he'd already known about the time travel. "Hawkins, I want you to take charge here. Once you get all the prisoners rounded up, take 'em up to your cabin, then truss 'em up good. Make sure you tie their arms and legs both; they're dangerous bastards, and they'll kill you lickety-split if they think they can get away with it. You keep them there until we can get some troops down here to take 'em off your hands. Just make sure that officer of yours doesn't do some damn-fool thing."

                Grinning his shared disdain of "osifers" through the dirt that streaked his face, Hawkins nodded vigorously. "You betcha, First Sergeant. We'll hogtie 'em all jus' like is if they was pigs." Caudell's schoolteacher instincts winced at the hash the younger man made of the rules of grammar in his excitement, but he was used to that by now.

Worf leaned closer towards Riker, glowering fiercely at the subdued captives, and grumbled, "Sir, perhaps we should simply transport them to Defiant's brig. They possess knowledge of the future, and do not belong here."

Riker shook his head, having already made the decision. If Captain Picard decided to overrule him later, it wouldn't be a problem to beam them up then. "This timeline's already been affected by them, Worf, and we can't get them home. No, they've made their bed – let them lie in it."

Sheridan clapped his hands together, the immediate chaos having subsided into some form of order, and said, "Our next course of action seems obvious enough. We go to Richmond, and enlist some help in looking for that second bomb."

"In the morning," Pleasants said firmly, consulting a pocket-watch by the light of Riker's phaser-mounted flashlight. "I doubt you'll find anyone but the night clerks in the War Department at this time of day. Even Forrest would be asleep now."

"If he sleeps," Caudell muttered.

"As I was saying," Pleasants continued with a sour look at his friend, "the President won't be available now. It'll be light in about three hours though, and we can probably rouse him not long after dawn."

"Perfect," Crusher said, suddenly rejoining the gathering from the darkness, where she'd been checking on the wounded. Back once more in her duty uniform, her movements were much quieter without the half-dozen layers of wire-braced cloth that comprised her costume. "Most of us have been awake for almost 24 hours straight, and I'm recommending we all –" she glared around the group, sparing no one from her determined gaze "– get some sleep. Consider that an order," she amended when Sheridan and Worf looked openly rebellious.

Arrangements were made quickly, with an agreement to resume their chase later in the morning. Pleasants, the two Caudells, and the other Confederates hustled the dejected Rivington men – fourteen in total – back to their cabin, while their trans-dimensional allies were whisked back to their ships by colorful transporter energies once the Confederates were safely out of sight.


	18. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

William T. Riker found himself enjoying the cool air of a summer morning in Richmond. What he was not enjoying, was the stench. Every planet had its own distinctive odor, and every time on one after an extended period in the climate-controlled environment of a starship was a different experience, usually unpleasant. He wasn't prepared for it on Earth though, and the combination of horse dung, sewers, factory smoke from the massive Tredegar Iron Works at the other end of the city, and other, less palatable aromas, had his sinuses trying to crawl up into his skull. The locals, long since acclimated to the smell, hardly noticed it, and he reminded himself that his own ancestor, Thaddeus, had lived in this same world.

Richmond was not the same city it had been merely ten years earlier. Now the capital of a nation, streets that had once been muddy lanes had been paved with macadam, and new muddy lanes marked its expanding boundaries. The famous Tredegar works had grown too, to match demand, even though it was now complimented by ironworks in other cities across the Confederacy. The smoke rising from its stacks were visible palls across the rising sun.

Henry Pleasants led the way, although his infrequent trips to the capital made him only marginally more sure of his whereabouts than Riker, Sheridan, Marcus, and Ivanova, who accompanied him. They had decided to keep this group small, in order to ease their passage through Richmond and the corridors of power in the Confederate government. Nate and Mollie Caudell had remained in Rivington, keeping an eye on the AWB prisoners, though Mollie's desire not to be recognized by President Lee had played into that decision. That left Sheridan, who'd insisted on seeing this through, his first officer, who had been as strident in her complaints about the period dress she'd donned, as she had been in her insistence on joining the mission, Commander Riker, and Marcus Cole. Garibaldi had been more than willing to remain behind, preferring to hover over the shoulders and Data and Geordi as they pored over both the neutron bomb and the remains of whatever had been housed in the Quonset hut in the Rivington camp. To make sure they didn't miss anything, in his words.

The passers-by here were less interested in the visitors than those in Rocky Mount or Nashville, being a generally more cosmopolitan sort, although Riker had to stifle a laugh every time Ivanova scowled at the men who doffed their hats to her as they passed. It did seem the people on the streets were more polite in a quaint fashion than he recalled from even San Francisco on his Earth, but he supposed that would be true of whatever city he visited in this time. He supposed Richmond too had a seamy underside – every city he'd ever been too, even on Earth, had one – but there was no sign of it in the cool breeze wafting off the gently moving waters of the James.

The buildings they passed between were low, rarely more than three stories tall, generally gracefully constructed brick and sandstone structures. Pleasants stopped on one corner, checking his bearings, then led them down another block of plainer buildings, finally stopping in front of a brick, stuccoed building of four stories, capped with ornate brickwork and wrought-iron filigree. Two soldiers in clean gray uniforms stood guard outside the main entrance, AK-47's slung casually across their shoulders.

Before going inside, the group paused to glance at the smaller two-story building across the street, which made quite a sight even to eyes new to the city. The walls were pocked and scored by bullet holes, and what Pleasants indicated were the results of rifled artillery, and there were various other scars visible on the surface which had been partially repaired, but apparently only enough to keep the building itself from collapsing. There was also, in contrast to the buildings around it – their destination included – a sizable contingent of Confederate soldiers patrolling its perimeter and standing guard. Their well worn routine, however, told Sheridan that they hadn't seen action recently.

Pleasants ushered them through the main doors of what Sheridan now recognized as the Mechanics Hall – the wartime home of both the Confederate War Department and Postal Service. Clerks scribbled away furiously at desks across the wide ground-floor room, ignoring the newcomers, just as they ignored the regular flow of people through the door, many rushing back and forth on official business. At the far end of the room was a larger desk, which even featured a polished brass nameplate that read, "John Beauchamp Jones."

"Excuse me, Mr. Jones?" Pleasants waited for a moment as the bespectacled man fussily tapped the papers in front of him into some inconceivable order, then, once certain he'd been acknowledged, continued, "I'm looking for General Forrest. Do you know where I might find him?"

Glancing up only once through thick lenses, Jones turned his attention immediately back to his paperwork. "I'm sorry sir, the General is in a meeting with the Secretary of War. Do you have an appointment?"

Pleasants tried again. "Mr. Jones, I am Colonel Pleasants, and I was ordered to report to the General as soon as possible, on a matter of the utmost urgency."

"I'm sure it is," the clerk replied ambiguously, without looking up. "However, the General is not available at the moment. If you'd like to make an appointment, I suggest you speak to his adjutant."

Ivanova growled deep in the back of her throat, crossed her arms, and fixed one of her meanest glares on the uncooperative man. He was impervious.

Pulling the soggy telegram from a pocket, Pleasants dropped it on the desk like a trump card, then simply waited for the scowling clerk to read it.

As Jones read the brief note, his whole demeanor changed, his eyes going round, and Pleasants knew there'd be rumors flying through the building about his business in a matter of minutes. "The Rivington men?" The clerk's face twisted indecisively, then abruptly relaxed, gingerly returning the damp telegram. "Very well. The Secretary's office is on the fourth floor. You can't miss it." He gestured to the stairway behind his desk.

Pleasants nodded politely, then strode past, leading his small group up four flights of stairs, until they found themselves in a hall with doors leading off from each side. When this had been the Mechanics Institute, this was an area that might have been reserved for faculty offices, but now it played host to some of the highest brass in the Confederacy. Near the end of the hall, they came to an unassuming wooden door which someone had tacked a plate to that read merely, "Secretary of War." The door was ajar, and another door lay beyond a small, stuffy room in which two aides were at work. Pleasants rapped his knuckles against the door politely, and stepped inside, removing his hat. Sheridan and Riker followed suit with theirs. Ivanova wasn't wearing one, and Marcus had never replaced his after having it shot to pieces, so they merely nodded to the two harried men.

"I'm here to see General Forrest," Pleasants said, brandishing his telegram outright this time. "I've an urgent report to make. I'm Colonel Henry Pleasants, formerly of the 48th Pennsylvania, more recently of Forrest's staff."

One of the two men stood, looking at the intruders curiously. "You're that Yank officer then, aren't you? I'll announce you," he said without waiting for an answer. He opened the inner door, and slipped inside quietly. A moment later, he reemerged, and nodded to them. "The Secretary and the General will see you now."

As the aide returned to his desk, Pleasants led his companions through the inner door, into a comfortable, if utilitarian office. Seated in an armchair in the corner, a rough-looking bearded man in a rumpled gray uniform watched them file through. Behind the wide, polished desk that dominated the room, a thin, sallow-faced man stared up at them from behind several small piles of papers, and replaced the pen in his hand in the inkwell beside them.

Sheridan's eyes widened, recognizing that face immediately, from various ancient photographs, illustrations, and even a few busts. He thought about mentioning it to the others, but was unsure if they'd even know the name.

Secretary of War Jefferson Davis glanced sideways at the ranking officer of the Confederate armed forces. "Is this your Yankee I've heard so much about, General?" To Pleasants: "Your reputation precedes you, Colonel."

"He does know how to dig a hole," Nathan Bedford Forrest said in rejoinder. "So, Colonel, you seem to have spared no delay in reportin' here." The General's accent was much thicker than even Mollie's, though still understandable. "What d'ya have for me?"

"A long, crazy story, General," Pleasants said with a half grin. "But first we've something of an emergency here."

"And your companions?" Davis sounded curious, and perhaps a bit put-off at the lack of expected introductions basic courtesy suggested.

"Part of the story, Mr. Secretary."

Forrest leaned forward, studying them all with a dark, hooded gaze. "Let's hear about this emergency o' yers first."

Taking a deep breath, Pleasants began to explain as much as he could of the current situation: About the new batch of Rivington men, their super-bomb, its destination, and their motives… though he glossed over the exact circumstances surrounding his compatriots. He knew it would come up, along with a dozen other questions, but hoped that those revelations could be put off until they could gain an audience with Lee. Like a lot of Union officers, he'd respected Lee, as a soldier and a man – but he frankly detested Davis, and Forrest simply unnerved him. Somewhat to his surprise, he quickly learned that both of them had already known about the improbable origins of the Rivington men, and seemed to be taking his warning seriously.

Davis's gaunt features looked even more drawn than when they'd entered as Pleasants finished his tale, and he shared a meaningful look with Forrest. "General, where would you say a carriage or wagon would be right now, if it were to arrive in Washington tomorrow afternoon?"

"I'd still be south of Richmond," Forrest said, without hint of humor. "But if this here charge's half as big an' heavy as he says, they cain't be moving that quick. Depends on which way they's goin' too. Could be as far as Winchester if'n they swung wide to the west, but if they went the straight road, they might be closer to Fredericksburg. They've got to cross the Rappahannock and the Potomac, and the bridges ain't all been fixed up yet"

"That is my assessment as well," Davis agreed gravely. "That does not leave us much time to act."

"Do we want to?" Forrest prompted with a raised eyebrow.

Davis's tone became hard. "General Forrest, while I would shed no tears for some of the denizens of that city, you are as aware as I that such an attack would only provoke another war. And I will not allow this country to suffer such horrors again if there is any way to prevent it." He turned his attention back to Pleasants and his companions. "However, we do not have the authority to make this decision. We must see the President at once."

The Secretary of War unfolded himself out of his chair, and led the way back through the outer office, and into the hallway, stopping only to alert his secretaries to his unscheduled absence. Once out on the street, he led them in the direction of the executive mansion, ignoring the carriage set aside for his use, as it would have been unable to accommodate a party of their size. Fortunately, Shockoe Hill was not too far distant, and they made steady progress through streets crowded with sudden onlookers, well-wishers, and job-seekers, who by all appearances, spawned by the dozens out of every door and alley at the mere sight of a political notable, particularly one as august as the first president of the Confederacy. Indeed, only icy glares and a march like a bulldozer from Forrest allowed them to reach the environs of the capitol, where politicians and officers of all stripes and stations were so common as to be practically beneath notice.

"We should'a moved the War Department the minute the shootin' stopped," Forrest grumped irritably.

"There are more pressing requirements for our treasury, General," Davis replied wearily, as though this were the latest bout of an on-going argument between them. "The Mechanic's Hall has sufficed for the war, and will continue to serve until more permanent facilities can be built." He nodded to some new construction on the far side of Capitol Square, where a statue of a mounted George Washington surveyed the booming national capital with sightless stone eyes.

The executive mansion, despite sometimes being referred to as the "Confederate White House" was painted an unappealing shade of gray. It had originally been the residence of the state governor, and like the state capitol building, had been commandeered by the new Confederate government when it transferred the capital there from Montgomery, Alabama.

They were waved through the gates in front of the building by two sentries who looked far better dressed than the men they'd spent the night battling Rivington men alongside. Two more guards stood at either side of the main entrance, impassively ignoring the newcomers. Riker was sure that the presence of the Secretary of War and one of the highest ranking generals in the military aided their speedy progress, but he still found security disturbingly light compared even to the largely ceremonial guard stationed outside of Starfleet Headquarters, even before the recent Dominion War.

They were met inside by Walter Taylor, who had served on Lee's staff during the war, and followed into the same envied position on the staff of the President. He inclined his head to Davis and Forrest, giving the others a curious once-over. "Mr. Secretary, General Forrest, is there something amiss? I did not see you on today's schedule."

"I will give the President my apologies for disturbing his busy schedule," Davis said with a faint smile. "Perhaps it will come easier from one who is somewhat experienced with just how busy that schedule is. But we must see him at once, Mr. Taylor."

Taylor looked nonplussed, and tugged distractedly at his neatly trimmed mustache. "That may be difficult, sir. He's meeting with the US military liaison at the moment. I will inform him immediately of course," Taylor hastily added. "Wait here please."

He returned barely two minutes later. "The President will see you now." He started to lead them to the stairwell, but Davis stopped him with a raised hand, looking even more openly amused.

"I believe I know the way, Mr. Taylor. Thank you."

Walter Taylor showed no trace of embarrassment, nodding and withdrawing to another office.

Davis led them upstairs to the second-floor office that served as the Confederate Oval Office – although this office was quite rectangular. Rapping his knuckles against the frame, Davis waited for a muffled acknowledgement before pushing the door open, and escorting his small retinue inside.

An officer in a blue uniform stood, placing his wide-brimmed hat back atop his head. As he turned to face the newcomers, Riker swore he heard Sheridan gasp, although he himself had not the faintest idea of who the officer might be. The officer's face was defined by an enormous handlebar mustache with a beard that was little more than thick stubble, his eyes radiating a certain chill, and his uniform lacking much of the gold braid and ornamentation that might otherwise have been expected from someone with two stars on his epaulets. Riker also found himself looking nearly down at the top of the man's head.

"Ah, Secretary Davis, I understand you are here with some pressing business? Walter was quite insistent on your behalf." This speaker was seated behind the central desk in a dark civilian suit, his face framed by a beard and thinning hair the color of new driven snow, peering through a thin pair of spectacles at a document in his hand. Riker was suitably impressed – even in the 24th century, the strategies devised by the man in front of him were still studied in Starfleet Academy – and beside him, Sheridan drew a short, awed breath.

Forrest, standing behind their small company, ushered them into the office, and took up a stance near the door, his face suddenly expressionless.

Davis ushered Pleasants, Riker, Sheridan, and Ivanova into several armchairs and a bench as he approached the desk. "Mr. President, as you know, we have maintained a garrison in the town of Rivington, North Carolina for the past several years. I must report that we have troubling new information…"

He got no further. Eyes flashing with sudden interest, Robert E. Lee set down the paper in his hands, and put his glasses aside, his gaze flickering across each of the new arrivals in turn. "The Rivington men have returned?" It was less of a question than a statement.

Forrest bristled at the question, and the officer in blue cleared his throat, sensing, despite his interest, that this was an internal matter to which he was an unwelcome observer. "If you will excuse me, Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, General Forrest," he said, preparing to make his exit.

"If the President has no objection," Davis drew himself up, "and against my own deepest inclinations, I believe General Sheridan should partake in this discussion as well." At that, Ivanova visibly started, though she held her peace. "This matter concerns his nation as well as ours, and we may well require his assistance in particular."

"I can only trust your judgment in this matter, of course," Lee replied, motioning for the _other _Sheridan to retake his seat, which the US officer did with a genteel nod. "The situation is truly that dire then?"

"I fear it is."

"You must by all means educate us at once, sir," Lee announced. "I presume this will involve your compatriots here?"

Forrest growled, "It will," in a tone that suggested it had better.

Lee paused, and said, "I trust you can vouch for their character, General? This is sensitive council, of course."

"No sir, I don't." Forrest replied plainly. "But Pleasants here does."

Now Lee's expression sharpened, coming to rest squarely on Henry Pleasants, who blanched, but thrust out his jaw and nodded. "I believe we have never before met, Colonel Pleasants," Lee said. "But I have heard of your exploits, and I thank you for your service to your adopted land once again. You were the subject of some discussion during the last fight against the AWB – General Forrest's Yankee, I believe was the expression."

Looking surprised at having been known to a man who was still reverently known as Marse Robert to his veterans, Pleasants nodded again. "Thank you sir. I'm afraid I did not fully explain the nature of my companions to either General Forrest or Secretary Davis in the interests of time, Mr. President, so what we have to say will be new to them as well."

"Do please continue, sir."

Pleasants stood, clearing his throat, and trying not to shy away from General Sheridan's accusing glare. "Mr. President, I should first say that I have a farm just outside of Nashville, North Carolina, not more than twenty miles as the crow flies to Rivington itself. Yesterday morning, I got word from my friend Nathaniel – First Sergeant Caudell, that is," he amended with a nod to Forrest, "that he had seen several suspicious persons at the Nashville General Store, on their way to Rocky Mount. We followed them to the train station there, and thence on to Rivington, where they debarked. Shortly after our arrival, we were taken under fire from the outskirts of town from some unseen and silent attackers. After we had driven them off, we continued to the garrison post, where we collected a squad of men, and continued on to the area where the Rivington men had made their settlement. We found there a camp, which we assaulted and destroyed. We also found a weapon, sir, an explosive device of unparalleled power. Under interrogation, we learned that the device we found had been intended for Richmond."

Lee absorbed that, considering what he'd been told carefully before speaking. "They hope to gain through chaos what they could not through manipulation," he murmured.

"My estimation as well, Mr. President," Davis seconded gravely.

In his own mind, Lee had always pictured time as a railroad, with the present as a station moving ever forward at a fixed rate, and the distant time the Rivington men came from as a second station, further up the track, also moving at a set rate of speed, and a time machine that allowed them to journey backwards on the rails like a chugging locomotive. That first machine – their original locomotive – had been destroyed, and Lee had always wondered if the men of AWB on that future station could not one day build or steal another 'locomotive.' And now it seemed that they had. He sat, head bowed, and eyes closed, for several moments before looking back up to meet Pleasants' gaze. "Tell me everything."

Out of necessity, and faced with both Lee's incisive questions and the steady burn of General Sheridan's eyes against the back of his head, Pleasants explained the sequence of events for the second time that morning; in far greater detail. He culminated the story with the account of capturing the Rivington men and their weapon, and learning of one bound for Washington.

When he finished, Forrest crossed his arms in front of him and scowled blackly.

"If I hadn't known the true origin of AWB, I'd have called you a damned liar, Colonel," he said.

General Sheridan twirled his mustache absently, nodding, out of habit or agreement, Pleasants couldn't tell. "A fantastic story indeed," he commented, "and I would have been far less inclined to believe those peculiarities had I not suspected such outrageousness for some time. Men from the future! An absurd tale… which I confess I brought up in conversation with Sam not long after Kentucky voted itself from the Union."

"You thought these men were time travelers?" Marcus blurted, astonished, visibly echoing the reactions of Davis and Lee. Forrest's scowl never wavered.

"It was one thought amid a night of mad speculation, sir," General Sheridan shot back. "An incident occurred during the vote in Kentucky which Sam relayed to me, regarding the strange men who had been apprehended attempting to smuggle some of your repeaters into the state. President Lee graciously agreed to sell the weapons to the United States for a nominal sum, which enabled us to examine fresh samples of the marvelous weapons.

"We spent much of a night discussing the nature of weapons of impossibly precise manufacture, created in countries to be found on no map, appearing suddenly in the midst of a rebellion that lacked the resources to supply the excellent ammunition, let alone the weapons themselves." He paused triumphantly. "You have confirmed idle speculation, sirs, nothing more, although Sam will be sore to hear he lost our small wager. You see, I had recalled reading a story, by a Mr. Poe, wherein a sailor, lost at sea, encounters a ship made of iron, and his mystification at beholding that which we take for granted in our own age." Seeing the reactions he'd gained, the general clarified, "I will, of course, consider this information to be taken in the closest confidence. You have my word on that."

Lee had considered such a perspective when he first learned the truth, and while it did not surprise him to find that others had perceived matters in a similar light, it nevertheless irked him. Changing the subject, he addressed Pleasants directly: "Colonel Pleasants, in the course of your narrative you reported that the people you initially followed as far as Rivington revealed themselves to be from a time even more distant than the year from which the AWB came to us from."

Pleasants ducked his head in acknowledgement. "Mr. President, these are some of those… more distant… travelers. Without them, we'd have never discovered this plot." He gestured then, to each of the people in question, in turn. "Mr. Marcus Cole, Commander Susan Ivanova, Commander William Riker, and Captain John…" here, even he paused, "… Sheridan."

Lee's brows lifted. Coincidences never sat well with him. "Relations?"

General Sheridan, caught off-guard by the name, shook his head vehemently. "No, Mr. President."

"Distantly," Captain Sheridan said at the same moment. "Very distantly." He met his ancestor's piercing gaze levelly, trying to suppress a sudden shiver. Now _this_ was something the Academy never prepared him for! Based on the stories he'd heard from Picard's crew, he was inclined to think that Starfleet Academy probably had a program devoted to it: Face-to-Face Meetings with Famous Ancestors 101.

General Sheridan (a name which had a nice ring to it, Captain Sheridan thought wistfully) finally looked away, glancing back across the others. "An Englishman, a Russian woman by the sound of the name, and two men with military ranks from a future time," he observed. "Extraordinary." If Ivanova bristled at the way he ignored her rank, she hid it well enough that he remained oblivious.

"I intend to discern your motives at the earliest opportunity," Lee cut in. "Our experiences with men from the future have been… mixed. However, Colonel Pleasants vouches for your character, and that must suffice for now if the situation is as dire as you say." He abruptly stood, suddenly, surprisingly tall and commanding. "Mr. Taylor," he called.

Taylor, who must have been waiting just outside the office door, entered almost immediately. "Sir?"

"A map of Northern Virginia, if you please," Lee said. Taylor disappeared instantly, and Lee looked solemnly around the room. "Gentlemen, in that case, we have a campaign to plan."

Phil Sheridan twirled his mustache extravagantly. "Mr. President, allow me use of your telegraph, and I shall have the border from Pennsylvania to the Chesapeake sealed by this very evening."

"We have to find that bomb first, but we've got a few options of our own," John Sheridan added.

Robert E. Lee peered at him through calculating eyes. "Of that, Captain, I have no trace of doubt."


End file.
